Nanotechnology

[Otto Matic]

Cross posted to the "Highly Imaginative Technology List" 
HIT-list at asisem.org

>------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
>Date:          Sun, 18 Jan 1998 23:14:32 -0500
>From:          Nathan Russell <frussell at frontiernet.net>
>Reply-to:      frussell at frontiernet.net
>To:            HIT-list at asisem.org
>Subject:       Re: HIT: Fwd: (Fwd) Re: Nanotechnology
>
>Otto Matic wrote:
>> 
>> >Orinally posted to the cypherpunks list cypherpunks at cyberpass.net.
>> >
>> >------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
>> >Date:          Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:45:36 -0500
>> >From:          ghio at temp0181.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio)
>> >Subject:       Re: Nanotechnology
>> >To:            cypherpunks at cyberpass.net
>> >Reply-to:      ghio at temp0181.myriad.ml.org (Matthew Ghio)

Matthew Ghio Wrote to the Cypherpunks:

<<<SNIP>>>

>> >So roughly 8 months just to build one copy, rather than to achieve
>> >world domination. :)
>> >
>> >Still, unless I'm way off on these estimates, it's within the right
>> >ballpark.  If the cubes were 1 cm, you could make copies in less
>> >than a day, assuming it didn't get too hot at that power level. 
>> >Just figure out how you're going to feed the electricity and raw
>> >materials into all those little things...
>
>You could direct the molecules the same way electron beams are steered
>in a TV > > > >This sort of replicator is not what is usually
>considered > >nanotechnology, but if it actually worked, such a >device
>could become 
> >quite popular.

Nathan Russell wrote to the HIT-List

Yeah... what about making microchips, LSD or diamonds - all of which
have very high value/mass ratios.  Or bio warfare agents - maybe in
cryogenic state to be warmed up when finished.  What about more
complicated lifeforms - like people.  It would be hard to figure out
what to use for currancy, though - in Star Trek, Latinum is assumed,
according to one book, to be dependent for its properties on a huge
number of molecular legs resting against each other rather like the
fins of an artichoke steamer - can't be replicated because unless the
molecule is complete each leg creates an unequal force on its
neighbors and they flip into a non-latinum position.  
 Not that there wouldn't be positive elements - medicine would be very
cheap.  In fact, a pound - or maybe a mole - of anything with value
would cost no more than its component elements, plus labor.  What
about little self- 'replicating' robots that go into a landfill and
produce an army of themselves, turning excess elements into something
useful.  

BTW, could living things be replicated or would the structure be too
complex?  Intelligence supposebly depends on electrons moving in tiny
protein quantom channels in the brain in a completely unprodictable
way, telpathy is the electrons becoming quantom linked.  That could be
hard to replicate.

-Nathan

___END FORWARDED___

Thought you cypher punks would like to see this.

Otto

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