Who here personaly views nanotechnology (especially the possibilities nanobots) as as a positive thing? Personally I'm split, we could do fantastic and terrible things. Overall it seems to dangerous though, a possibility that we could make an army of bots that replicate and repair themselves that are designed to deconstruct organic matter seems a little to risky to me. I just know somebody will try to use it as a weapon. On the other hand it could make fantastic leaps and bounds in health care and even slow then eventually stop aging (which is fantastic to think of but definently NOT worth doing).
Like I said before, overall it's just too dangerous.
Full Version: Nanotechnology
nanobots huh...well they are too small to do anything. 
If I didn't think you were joking I might have gone into a rant 
and nobody wants that.
and nobody wants that.
Good guess. 
Deus Ex did an alright but somewhat unrealisitic (but give it a break it's just a game) job of showing the dangers and benifits of Nanotechnology. The Grey Death was a perfect example of nanobots causing humans harm. I can't imagine anything worse than being slowly taken apart piece by piece by microscopic little robots inside my bloodstream *shiver*
Quoted from Exit-Mundi
QUOTE
It was no one less than the Nobel prize winning physicist Richard Feynman who gave rise to the `problem'. In a famous 1959 lecture, Feynman predicted that man will some day be able to make nano machines, devices so tiny that you can't even see them. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and a nano machine would be a thousand times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.
Well, mr. Feynman wasn't drunk when he predicted this. Machines ARE getting smaller: just compare the microchips of today with the huge taperecorder-like computers from the fifties. But it can go much smaller still. In principle, Feynman foretold, you can make computers and other gadgets out of single atoms. You only have to `click' them together in the right way, like tiny pieces of construction lego.
And he was right. In 1986, the physicist K. Eric Drexler took up Feynman's ideas, and coined the term nanotechnology: `the technology of creating and working with devices only a few nanometers big', as it is defined. In 1990, the world realised that this was no longer science fiction, as a team of IBM researchers managed to arrange 35 single xenon atoms so that they spelled out the logo of IBM. Rumour has it that another research team responded to this crafty display of atom knitting by doing some intellectual nano graffiti: `Bill Gates sucks', also jotted down in single xenon atoms.
Nano Marketing: The IBM-logo
spelled out in Xenon atoms
Ever since then, nanotechnology has underwent a modest revolution. With the coming of the Atomic Force Microscope, which uses a tiny `needle' to explore the surface of materials, scientists have been able to `pick up' single atoms and move them elsewhere. Numerous universities and privately funded institutes engage in nanotech. Nano engineers have at their disposal a toolkit full of crafty gadgets, ranging from nano trains that transport atoms across a nano track, to a nano pen that squirts out atoms instead of ink. Also, there's a growing collection of nano switches, nano wires, nano tubes and - more recently - the first nano `engines': rotor shaped molecules that rotate under the influence of the right changes in temperature and light.
Well, but we're still alive and kicking. So where's the gray goo? O, wait and see. The end of the world may be nearer than you think.
Nano philosophers foresee that one day (some estimate around 2010) it will be possible to create a nano assembler: a man made molecule, that is `programmed' to create certain things out of raw materials. A nano assembler would for instance pick up plain carbon atoms and rearrange them into the molecular structure of a diamond. Or it would make water out of the atomic parts of plain air. Or a cheese sandwich out of dust. Or water into wine, you name it.
This notion is not as weird as it sounds. Our DNA- and RNA-molecules do it all the time! They pick up the raw materials from our food, and turn them into complex molecules. DNA and RNA are nano assemblers that manufacture whole organisms, with arms and legs, and fingers that can type the word `nanotechnology'.
Hungry Molecule: a nano machine would have to `eat' molecules, arranging them into copies of itself
So, if a nano factory can be programmed to create a cheese sandwich out of atoms, why wouldn't it be able to create new nano factories? This in fact is exactly the way it will be, at least according to nanopioneers like K. Eric Drexler. Let's face it: it's a hell of a job to build a nano machine by hand. It would be much easier to make nano machines that are capable of copying themselves, much in the way DNA-molecules replicate themselves. Nano scientists claim it is even essential for a nano machine to be self-replicating. Since they are so tiny, we would need millions of them to be of any use. It would take a lifetime to make them all by hand. Nano factories are thus by definition Von Neumann machines: devices capable of creating new copies of themselves.
But there's a nasty downside. What will such a self-replicating nano machine do if you carelessly tossed it away? You guessed it: it would go on grabbing all atoms within reach, rearranging them into copies of itself. And the copies would make more copies of themselves. And those copies would make even more copies of the copies of the copies. And so on.
No, you just DON'T want to know what this means. Within only 72 hours after the release of the first molecular nano machine, every single atom on earth would be `used' to create new nano machines. In other words, all plants, animals, humans, cars, buildings and even rocks would have been `eaten up' by a vast, exponentially growing army of invisibly small nano devices.
Well, mr. Feynman wasn't drunk when he predicted this. Machines ARE getting smaller: just compare the microchips of today with the huge taperecorder-like computers from the fifties. But it can go much smaller still. In principle, Feynman foretold, you can make computers and other gadgets out of single atoms. You only have to `click' them together in the right way, like tiny pieces of construction lego.
And he was right. In 1986, the physicist K. Eric Drexler took up Feynman's ideas, and coined the term nanotechnology: `the technology of creating and working with devices only a few nanometers big', as it is defined. In 1990, the world realised that this was no longer science fiction, as a team of IBM researchers managed to arrange 35 single xenon atoms so that they spelled out the logo of IBM. Rumour has it that another research team responded to this crafty display of atom knitting by doing some intellectual nano graffiti: `Bill Gates sucks', also jotted down in single xenon atoms.
Nano Marketing: The IBM-logo
spelled out in Xenon atoms
Ever since then, nanotechnology has underwent a modest revolution. With the coming of the Atomic Force Microscope, which uses a tiny `needle' to explore the surface of materials, scientists have been able to `pick up' single atoms and move them elsewhere. Numerous universities and privately funded institutes engage in nanotech. Nano engineers have at their disposal a toolkit full of crafty gadgets, ranging from nano trains that transport atoms across a nano track, to a nano pen that squirts out atoms instead of ink. Also, there's a growing collection of nano switches, nano wires, nano tubes and - more recently - the first nano `engines': rotor shaped molecules that rotate under the influence of the right changes in temperature and light.
Well, but we're still alive and kicking. So where's the gray goo? O, wait and see. The end of the world may be nearer than you think.
Nano philosophers foresee that one day (some estimate around 2010) it will be possible to create a nano assembler: a man made molecule, that is `programmed' to create certain things out of raw materials. A nano assembler would for instance pick up plain carbon atoms and rearrange them into the molecular structure of a diamond. Or it would make water out of the atomic parts of plain air. Or a cheese sandwich out of dust. Or water into wine, you name it.
This notion is not as weird as it sounds. Our DNA- and RNA-molecules do it all the time! They pick up the raw materials from our food, and turn them into complex molecules. DNA and RNA are nano assemblers that manufacture whole organisms, with arms and legs, and fingers that can type the word `nanotechnology'.
Hungry Molecule: a nano machine would have to `eat' molecules, arranging them into copies of itself
So, if a nano factory can be programmed to create a cheese sandwich out of atoms, why wouldn't it be able to create new nano factories? This in fact is exactly the way it will be, at least according to nanopioneers like K. Eric Drexler. Let's face it: it's a hell of a job to build a nano machine by hand. It would be much easier to make nano machines that are capable of copying themselves, much in the way DNA-molecules replicate themselves. Nano scientists claim it is even essential for a nano machine to be self-replicating. Since they are so tiny, we would need millions of them to be of any use. It would take a lifetime to make them all by hand. Nano factories are thus by definition Von Neumann machines: devices capable of creating new copies of themselves.
But there's a nasty downside. What will such a self-replicating nano machine do if you carelessly tossed it away? You guessed it: it would go on grabbing all atoms within reach, rearranging them into copies of itself. And the copies would make more copies of themselves. And those copies would make even more copies of the copies of the copies. And so on.
No, you just DON'T want to know what this means. Within only 72 hours after the release of the first molecular nano machine, every single atom on earth would be `used' to create new nano machines. In other words, all plants, animals, humans, cars, buildings and even rocks would have been `eaten up' by a vast, exponentially growing army of invisibly small nano devices.
Indeed, the idea of an atom-eating nanobot is just too terrifying to ever go through with.
Oh and don't forget that the US military has put massive funding into Nano-Tech armor, to the point where it would be a flexable as normal cloth, but when struck with the right velocity and force would (at the same moment) change the atoms to a rigid formation..
I cant some it up tell well but according to them, the tech will be in use by 2010.. but knowing how things work, dont expect it to be untill 2016..
I cant some it up tell well but according to them, the tech will be in use by 2010.. but knowing how things work, dont expect it to be untill 2016..
It depends...is microsoft making it?
hmm this is all fascinating, but i had a different idea of nano tech. read an article about it. apparently they are using genetically altered viruses that attract gold and stuff, to make microchips. and also they have managed to organize a certain organic compound that has memory abilities and can exceed the amount of memory of current hard drives, but are way way smaller.
yah i can't quite remember the article exactly, its been about 7 months since i read it. But i do know it has to do with building computers out of organic compounds instead of the stuff we currently buil it from. since it would be cheaper to build it from cells to microchips instead of the current process where they start with these huge numbers of resouces and have to keep chucnking it down smaller and smaller, costing more to manufacture.
sry if it made no sense -.-
yah i can't quite remember the article exactly, its been about 7 months since i read it. But i do know it has to do with building computers out of organic compounds instead of the stuff we currently buil it from. since it would be cheaper to build it from cells to microchips instead of the current process where they start with these huge numbers of resouces and have to keep chucnking it down smaller and smaller, costing more to manufacture.
sry if it made no sense -.-
QUOTE(Channler @ Aug 16 2005, 04:34 PM)
Oh and don't forget that the US military has put massive funding into Nano-Tech armor, to the point where it would be a flexable as normal cloth, but when struck with the right velocity and force would (at the same moment) change the atoms to a rigid formation..
I cant some it up tell well but according to them, the tech will be in use by 2010.. but knowing how things work, dont expect it to be untill 2016..
I cant some it up tell well but according to them, the tech will be in use by 2010.. but knowing how things work, dont expect it to be untill 2016..
I remember that one. The Wired What's Next convention right? That's just nano-machinery not neccisarily nanobots.
I'm getting interested in that thing where you can get computers to turn on by themselves. Thermonuclear??
I'm not sure if its that confrence, but the concepts I spoke of involved nano-bots, not just the normal tech
Well then, forgive me for being such a pompous jackass 
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