/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10588896
RNA is possible

>>10588989
fpbp and /thread

*wobbles*

>>10588896
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97t7Xj_iBv0

Sort of.

>>10588896
Power storage is a huge issue for nano-engineering. Any existing battery or capacitor technology would make something that size vibrate apart.

>>10588896
Yes, we just have to figure out how to build it.
>>10589171
Chemical energy storage works fine

>>10588896
Is that an actual simulation, or is it just animated?

>>10588896
Well, there are nanomachines, but they don't look like this. Despite looking cool, there are more efficient ways to do work with nanomachines

>>10589171
What if the nanomachines could function in chains or structures that conduct energy across/between themselves, instead of each one requiring its own battery?

>>10589697
it's a classical molecular dynamics simulation.
>>10589868
>>they don't look like this
yet.
>>efficient
like what? Atomically precise molecular technology could be much more flexible and capable than other types of nanotechnology. For example, how can you make nigh perfect carbon nanotubes hundreds of kilometers long with these supposed more efficient approaches? There's so much more you can do when you don't make things from fucking spaghetti.
>>10589879
dude, you're fucking high. Chemical energy storage is fine for free running tiny machines. Especially because there is the potential for direct conversion of chemical energy to work. If you can build diamonoid tiny technology then it's also possible to store hydrogen at pretty high pressures

>>10589889
Could a tiny machine with a battery like that really be on the nano, rather than micro, scale?

Could the self-replicating swarm concept allow for it, or would it require a specialized nano-factory or something?

>>10588896
This little thing is ATP synthase, a critical element in every single cell of yours. It's literally a fucking molecular turbine.

Also look into kinesins if you want your mind blown even further.

Note that molecular machines are kinda stochastic, they don't move as nicely as on the animations but on average the effect is the same.

>>10589919
Well one thing you can do with tiny robots that go into the body is exploit resources present in the body like glucose. E.coli is only like 2% efficient at moving itself around, but it basically lives in an environment where fuel is cheap.

>>10589929
Ughh... a spaghetti poster.
>>kinda stochastic
it does not have to be this way

>>10589889
>atomically precise molecular technology could be much more flexible and capable than other types of technology.
Not necessarily. Take a look at this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6187517/

>>10589952
What an absolute joke. What you posted is basically a technological dead end. Wow we make tiny thing move with light! So uh... how are you going to get intense UV light into the body. WE MADE A NANOMACHINE! LOOK IT MOVES! So what can you do with it? IT MOVES! IT'S TINY! NANOMACHINES! The computer renderings of them moving in the blood stream are a complete joke.

>>10589952
oh yeah and the efficiency of azobenzene LCP is abysmal. I can't remember off the top of my head, but it's either 0.2 or 0.02%. Man I fucking hate spaghetti. Azobenzene's cool though.

>>10589981
Not all nanomachines are for medical purposes or need to move around inside a body, though.

Perhaps think about an agricultural application for nanomachines, they could be powered by the same thing that's growing the food

>>10590026
What you posted is still an absolute joke. Why is moving in the blood stream a joke? Ok cool, so let's inject some nanomotors in the blood. Why? To move drugs to a tumor! Why not inject them directly into the tumor? Because then we could reach inaccessible places! But you need to shine light into those inaccessible places, or worse you need to inject something capable of shining light and a microscopic camera to see where they are to control them.
>>agricultural application
to do what exactly. They can move. That's about fucking it. That's not very useful unless you can control their movements and respond to their surroundings. They have not demonstrated any way they could conceivably achieve onboard control. Even if they could it would likely be difficult to engineer to do specific tasks. Atomically precise manufacturing is OP. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to herd atoms into the right shape using chemistry, self-assembly, lithography and other crude processes. Molecular tiny tech that lets us make almost arbitrary structures is much more flexible than trying to make things by having atoms randomly bumping around.

>>10590142
this is generally what i see nanomachines as being. you can certainly organize atoms efficiently, and people make those stupid angstrom movies but ive yet to see anyone show me what a nanomachine is actually useful for. It's not a problem of powering it until you need an actual application.

we were having this debate on /pol/
Would it be easier to colonize Mars, or Venus?

Everyone was arguing Mars, because duh it's Mars.
But the thing is, Mars has a super thin atmosphere, no magnetosphere, low gravity. Things that cannot be fixed easily.

Whereas Venus's main problem is it's atmospheric composition. All you would need to do is program a small microorganism, send it to venus, let it reproduce and change the atmospheric composition into oxygen. Thus instead of spending hundreds of trillions of dollars terraforming a dumpy space-rock, all you have to do is sit in a lab for a few decades programming a single microorganism, send a small vial of it to Venus, and then wait a couple decades. Very easy and much more doable than manually terraforming an entire planet by hand.

>>10588896

duuuude naaano tubes space elevators lmao

>>10590945
Nanoassembly is more of an art than a science.

>>10590964
"they hate him because he speaks the truth"

>>10590964
The issue with Venus isn't just that it's atmosphere is the wrong composition (96+% CO2) but also it's enormous density and pressure, Venus has an enormously more dense atmosphere than we do, about 63kg/m^3 compared to Earth's 1.2kg/m^3. Even if your extremophile terraforming bacteria survive and do their job you'll be left with a breathable atmosphere which weighs 93x that of Earths and exerts about as much pressure on objects immersed in it as water does at a depth of 900m, and surface temperatures may or may not actually be mitigated by a change in atmospheric composition, past a certain point CO2 doesn't effectively act as a greenhouse gas, while water vapor is a much more powerful greenhouse gas but again above certain concentrations begins to reject more energy than it absorbs due to forming highly reflective clouds. A change in atmosphere also won't change the fact that Venus is much closer to Sol and will always get pounded by hard UV radiation and soak in much more energy compared to Earth, it will either have to have it's magnetic field greatly artificially enhanced or some kind of sunshield will have to be put into place to reduce that incoming radiation so the planet can cool sufficiently.

>>10590964
anything biological would die in the extreme temperature

>>10591246
>magnetic fields stop UV radiation
um ok

>>10590945
Making almost any structure we want with atomic precision at scale changes everything. Want cheap solar power? Just arrange bits of metal or conductive material to make antennas and rectifiers which operate at the frequency of light. Want a better battery? Since we can make molecularly precise structures from carbon we can make a pressure vessel capable of containing hydrogen at high pressures, possibly making it metallic. We can then make a high efficiency, high power fuel cell because we can make a crazy complicated high surface area structures that have the best possible proton exchange properties. You want a faster computer? Make a bunch of single molecule transistors wired up with fucking graphene so they switch at THz frequencies. Because they're so small we can have computers with mole quantities of transistors. And to prevent them from overheating we add tiny pipes in a crazy 3d structure to cool them. It's also been estimated that the manufacturing speed should be sufficient to rebuild the entire US economy starting from nothing in a week. We can make electric motors with incredibly high power densities. I could go on, I won't because we aren't sure if the processes to do atomically precise manufacturing are practical or even possible. Please keep that in mind. But being to organize atoms more efficiently is quite overpowered.
>>10590964
>>a few decades
Is not long enough. You might be able to change the atmospheric composition, but it's going to take time to cool. Even if you block out all the sunlight, the atmosphere and surface still have thermal mass. Self replicating technology is OP though for the reasons you have mentioned. It could let us manipulate matter at very large scales practically. But there are limits.
>>10591246
>>pressure
Earth's atmosphere during the hadean era had about 1/3 the pressure Venus has today.
>>10591269
just make a giant solar filter.
>>10591254
Supposed molecular nanotechnology would probably die too.

>>10588896
I thought atoms were mostly empty? How do they stick together like that?

>>10591246
That just gives you a lot more to work with.

You know the Earth's atmosphere was overwhelmingly Carbon at one point. Most of that Carbon was sucked out of the atmosphere and preserved in solid form as snail shells and such.
As opposed to Mars where you literally need to somehow import an entire atmosphere

All you need to do is program the right microorganisms to do this terraforming for you

>>10588896
i think they've already started nano mechanical engineering but nothing to the degree you have here

>>10588896
As someone whose bachelors' degree is in microtechnology, the whole field is promising but a huge mess.

>>10589171
This is a genuine issue

>>10589078
Compliance mechanisms are interesting, but a mess. I had to design a watt balance with a team and u best know catia inside out. Also u best be damn good at 2D geometry and coming up with weird structures(I hope ur good friends with a topologist). Flexible membranes are just easier.

In a nutshell nanotech is still waaaay in its early stages and nothing too hot is happening for the next few decades.

Also dealing with cleanrooms is really annoying.

If u wanna do a doctorate, nanotech is really open ended, sooo yea.

Or if u wanna play it safe, join the Robotics and Photonics bandwagon. Its just at the point of huge mainstream interest. Also being a roboticist makes a a really good general purpose engineer. As much as my coleagues would hate me for saying this, Robotics is the new Mechanical engineering.
The electrical engineers are somewhere nebulous in the university actually doing most of the work while the Roboticists compare dicks with the mechanical engineers.

>>10589171
it's not an issue if you can extract energy from the environment the tiny machines operate in.
>>10591461
Don't design compliant mechanisms. That's a job for the computer to solve
>>nothing too hot is happening
no. The 2016 nobel prize in chemistry was awarded to scientists who made tiny machines. I'd say we're roughly at the point of early atmospheric steam engines in terms of development. It's not advertized much, but rhe DOE's trying to make a basic atomically precise assembler within 5 years.
>>mechanical engineers
incidentally, some chemists are starting to work with mechanical engineers...
>>robotics
Comparing fields is pointless. MechE really needs to have more controls and an algorithms course which at least gets into A*. Seriously MechEs should do more programming. There's no way to avoid it in this day and age. It's pretty much required for true MechE(mechanism design)

>>10590964
The issue on Venus is the pressure so you need to expel millions of tons of gas into space at Venus escape velocities to reduce that. On Mars you can just make a pressurized sub-terrain habitat.

https://youtu.be/qpvV7qnozl8

viruses are like nanobots too small for humans to view... if only we could harness their powers for good... imagine the purpose...

>>10592066
They're already using bacteriophages in experimental medical treatments.

>>10589929
I can never buy abiogensis because of stuff like this

>>10592087
I had a biochem professor that thought the same thing. He was a born again christian because of it supposedly. I think the thing that is hard to picture is just how much fucking time this stuff would have had to develop. There are a number of less complex metabolic mechanisms that have been discoverd that could be representative of intermediates between just straight glycolysis and phosporylation using atp synthase.

>>10588896
I want to fuck the big gear

>>10588896
Jesus Christ imagine how devastating a magnet would be to that system

>>10591461
>bachelors' degree is in microtechnology,
sounds pretty useless

>>10592193
You have nanopenis?

>>10592272
It wouldn't be

>>10592773
You sure about that?

The best building material for proposed nanomachines is carbon (nanotubes, buckyballs etc..), which is a magnetic material, though I'm unsure to what degree carbon is magnetic or how it compares to metal

what is this, a fleshlight for ants?

>>10592349
id agree, but i feel like my uni reluctantly gives bachelor degrees just to agree with the eu credit scoring system. Usually when we say a degree its refering to the masters.
So in that respect, u just learn the prequisites for doing photonics/robotics/nanotech

>>10591564
>MechE really needs to have more controls and an algorithms
This varies from uni to uni tho
Where im from they put a lot of enphasis on control system design, and consequently the MechE ppl learn c++/matlab/labview.
Granted they dont care much for optimisation

>>10594259
carbon typically ain't magnetic. I forget what yellow is in that gif. I forget what the fucking crazy thing those gears are made from, but if you look they are square not hexagonal. Also I'm not even sure the molecular nanotechnologists have thought how they are actually gonna build those damn things. There's diamonoid mechanosynthesis, which has sort of been worked to make stuff in a diamond lattice, but how do you make that curved shit?
>>10594337
No, ME's really need to learn shit more than just matlab and labview. They certainly need to learn some search algorithms. Also I'm pissed that I learned bond graphs in ME rather than control. Bond graphs are based, but we totally skipped classic linear controls.