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Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least mak

Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)? Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very small scale? Has anyone ever tried that?

asmithmd1 16y ago
That is one of the authors points -- no one has done self replication on a macro scale and nanotech just assumes self replication at the molecular level
- crayz 16y ago
  This is really a straw man argument. If you go read Drexler's blog(e.g. this series: http://metamodern.com/2009/12/19/molecular-manufacturing-where%E2%80%99s-the-progress/ http://metamodern.com/2009/12/19/molecular-manufacturing-whe...), he is very explicit that the path forward is studying natural self-assembly from DNA and then tearing that apart, finding how it works, and modularizing/modifying it for our own purposes. None of this appears to be a "crazy idea" or something out of humanity's reach til long after we're all dead, as this author claims Drexler's egotistical to be sure. It doesn't make him wrong
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    That's the main problem with this piece, it attacks a Drexler that no longer exists, his views have shifted quite a bit from back then.
    - abecedarius 16y ago
      I think it attacks a Drexler that never existed; the chapter in Nanosystems on ways forward outlined similar ideas to that more recent post. Just because the bulk of Nanosystems explores a class of systems that's easier to analyze and currently impossible to build, he wasn't ever saying "Let's try to build this class of systems! Right now!" The OP was a total caricature.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  That's not really true, we self-replicate all the time (thanks mom and dad). What we don't know how to do is design things that self-replicate from scratch, but we do already have plenty of existence proofs. Also, self-replication is actually easier at the molecular level because all the parts are perfectly regular.
  - plato 16y ago
    And we can think too, and you can see where is AI in that moment. :) And ducks can fly with flexible wings. And the Sun is a thermonuclear reactor. You can find demonstrations of this type of things everywhere, that doesn't means that we can make them work with our materials, techniques and knowledge. Nanotech seems to my like AI, always there, at just two steps... that's the type of problems that smell to vaporware from miles.
    - billswift 16y ago
      Somebody said that the reason there is no progress in AI is that once a problem domain is understood well enough that there are working applications in it, nobody calls it AI any longer.
  - JabavuAdams 16y ago
    Yeah, we have nano-forges. They're called wombs. Now if only we could re-program women to make iPhones. The late-night trips to the gas station and gravel store because wife has another petroleum and sand-craving would totally be worth it.
  - JoeAltmaier 16y ago
    Somebody just created artificial DNA, put it in another cell, and it self-replicated. So yes we DO know how to do this now.
    - Symmetry 16y ago
      Yeah, but we were reusing the cell's own molecular machinery there. What I was thinking of, though I wasn't clear, was all new machinery.
- pjscott 16y ago
  Self-replicating nanotech is only one kind. All you really need to be able to do is build nanomachines; whether they're built by identical nanomachines or by some big contraption doesn't matter to the end result.
fragmede 16y ago
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the_Bottom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the...)
henrikschroder 16y ago
That's kind of the point of the article, materials do not behave on a nano scale the same way they behave at our macro scale. You absolutely cannot scale down, you have to design from the bottom up instead. The author thinks this is impossible because progress is slow. That's not really an argument, but I'll agree that "just you wait and see!" isn't one either. However, biology shows us that it's not impossible to do self-replicating "machinery" so I think we'll get there one day, but it might probably be a lot more organic and a lot less mechanical than we currently envision when we say nanotech.
mechanical_fish 16y ago
We do have things that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale. They're called catalysts, and when they're made out of amino acids they're called enzymes, and you and I are built out of them. Yes, you can assemble molecules with AFM. The problem with this idea is that either (a) the molecules don't stick together at temperatures much above absolute zero, or (b) they do, in which case they might be stable at useful temperatures, in which case it's better to figure out how to get them to self-assemble or to find a catalyst/enzyme that helps them self-assemble. Because your nifty molecule just isn't that nifty if it doesn't exist in quantities of order 1 mole, and 1 mole is... a lot. You just won't believe how vastly mind-bogglingly big 10^23 is. All of which boils down to this: This essay is great, but the meat of it really is in the first paragraph. Nanotech is a euphemism for chemistry and biochemistry. It is 100% possible -- indeed, nanotech is older than any human-invented technology by many orders of magnitude, by definition, because humans are built out of "nanotech" -- but it's all just chemistry. The real question is why the word nanotechnology is so much more fashionable in grant-writing circles than the old words.
nivertech 16y ago
When I was a child, I read a SciFi story about one guy, who built such an arm. Then using this arm under the microscope he built a set of microscopic tools, etc. Later in the story he fighting with bacteria and viruses, but because of the feedback of his microscopic arm, he was injured and almost killed by these tiny creatures.

asmithmd1 16y ago

That is one of the authors points -- no one has done self replication on a macro scale and nanotech just assumes self replication at the molecular level

crayz 16y ago
This is really a straw man argument. If you go read Drexler's blog(e.g. this series: http://metamodern.com/2009/12/19/molecular-manufacturing-where%E2%80%99s-the-progress/ http://metamodern.com/2009/12/19/molecular-manufacturing-whe...), he is very explicit that the path forward is studying natural self-assembly from DNA and then tearing that apart, finding how it works, and modularizing/modifying it for our own purposes. None of this appears to be a "crazy idea" or something out of humanity's reach til long after we're all dead, as this author claims Drexler's egotistical to be sure. It doesn't make him wrong
- jacquesm 16y ago
  That's the main problem with this piece, it attacks a Drexler that no longer exists, his views have shifted quite a bit from back then.
  - abecedarius 16y ago
    I think it attacks a Drexler that never existed; the chapter in Nanosystems on ways forward outlined similar ideas to that more recent post. Just because the bulk of Nanosystems explores a class of systems that's easier to analyze and currently impossible to build, he wasn't ever saying "Let's try to build this class of systems! Right now!" The OP was a total caricature.
Symmetry 16y ago
That's not really true, we self-replicate all the time (thanks mom and dad). What we don't know how to do is design things that self-replicate from scratch, but we do already have plenty of existence proofs. Also, self-replication is actually easier at the molecular level because all the parts are perfectly regular.
- plato 16y ago
  And we can think too, and you can see where is AI in that moment. :) And ducks can fly with flexible wings. And the Sun is a thermonuclear reactor. You can find demonstrations of this type of things everywhere, that doesn't means that we can make them work with our materials, techniques and knowledge. Nanotech seems to my like AI, always there, at just two steps... that's the type of problems that smell to vaporware from miles.
  - billswift 16y ago
    Somebody said that the reason there is no progress in AI is that once a problem domain is understood well enough that there are working applications in it, nobody calls it AI any longer.
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  Yeah, we have nano-forges. They're called wombs. Now if only we could re-program women to make iPhones. The late-night trips to the gas station and gravel store because wife has another petroleum and sand-craving would totally be worth it.
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  Somebody just created artificial DNA, put it in another cell, and it self-replicated. So yes we DO know how to do this now.
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    Yeah, but we were reusing the cell's own molecular machinery there. What I was thinking of, though I wasn't clear, was all new machinery.
pjscott 16y ago
Self-replicating nanotech is only one kind. All you really need to be able to do is build nanomachines; whether they're built by identical nanomachines or by some big contraption doesn't matter to the end result.

fragmede 16y ago

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the_Bottom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the...)

henrikschroder 16y ago

That's kind of the point of the article, materials do not behave on a nano scale the same way they behave at our macro scale. You absolutely cannot scale down, you have to design from the bottom up instead. The author thinks this is impossible because progress is slow. That's not really an argument, but I'll agree that "just you wait and see!" isn't one either. However, biology shows us that it's not impossible to do self-replicating "machinery" so I think we'll get there one day, but it might probably be a lot more organic and a lot less mechanical than we currently envision when we say nanotech.

mechanical_fish 16y ago

We do have things that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale. They're called catalysts, and when they're made out of amino acids they're called enzymes, and you and I are built out of them. Yes, you can assemble molecules with AFM. The problem with this idea is that either (a) the molecules don't stick together at temperatures much above absolute zero, or (b) they do, in which case they might be stable at useful temperatures, in which case it's better to figure out how to get them to self-assemble or to find a catalyst/enzyme that helps them self-assemble. Because your nifty molecule just isn't that nifty if it doesn't exist in quantities of order 1 mole, and 1 mole is... a lot. You just won't believe how vastly mind-bogglingly big 10^23 is. All of which boils down to this: This essay is great, but the meat of it really is in the first paragraph. Nanotech is a euphemism for chemistry and biochemistry. It is 100% possible -- indeed, nanotech is older than any human-invented technology by many orders of magnitude, by definition, because humans are built out of "nanotech" -- but it's all just chemistry. The real question is why the word nanotechnology is so much more fashionable in grant-writing circles than the old words.

nivertech 16y ago

When I was a child, I read a SciFi story about one guy, who built such an arm. Then using this arm under the microscope he built a set of microscopic tools, etc. Later in the story he fighting with bacteria and viruses, but because of the feedback of his microscopic arm, he was injured and almost killed by these tiny creatures.