X-Message-Number: 21052
From: 
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 06:44:28 EST
Subject: Re: CryoNet #21010 Nano robotic arm + more

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> 
> From: Henri Kluytmans <>
> Yvan Bozzonetti wrote :
> 
> >the nanomanipulator case as an example.
>  tools must have a control system finner than the atom scale they 
> >want to move. This can't be done with a minute robot arm, even built frm 
> >single molecules.
> 
> For example, applying 1 volts across a 750 micron thick piezoelectric 
> crystal causes it to deform by ~0.4 nm. PZT crystals are commonly used 
> to provide movement of samples being examined in scanning probe micros-
> copes such as STMs and AFMs. AFMs can achieve a resolution of 10 pm. 

Assume I want to mesure 100 m with 100 independent 1 m mesurements, each with 
uncertainty of X. My uncertainty on 100 m will be X/10, the square root of 
100 mesurements. That is why a macroscopic system with many atom lengths can 
have a precision better than a nanodevice. To take your example, assume you 
use a PZT crystal 7.5 micrometer thick, it will be 10 times less precise and 
will acheive only 100 pm resolution... because it would deform by only 4 pm, 
the error would be 25 time larger than the displacement.


Message #21021
From: Henri Kluytmans <>
Subject: nanotech, MNT


>Therefore I agreed, they are "techno-fiction", but not science 
>fiction. I still haven't seen any valid scientific argument 
>against the concept of MNT.

You could as well said that about interstelar travels. Even in this case 
there have been published technical schemes to get here. For MNT, you have 
only one idea and no proof it is impossible, a weaker position. It is similar 
to a religious faith: If you can't give a mathematical poof it is false, then 
I chose to think it is true...

>No, if I, or somebody else had a detailed idea of how to realize 
>the first assembler the world would already have known by now.

So that idea is of no practical value today, because even if you have the 
money you don't know from where to start. When I have spoken about the 
possibility to use clay crystals as printed circuits for nano biochemical 
components, I knew from where to start, what instrument to use to get to the 
aim and so on...

>But the fact that the path to get there is not known yet, does 
>not consitute a proof that it is scientifically impossible. All 
>research done so far seems to confirm that the concept of MNT 
>should be possible.

May be, but you can do nothing today with that.

>Please tell me a **valid** scientific argument against the MNT 
>concept.

Science is about testable observational or experimental facts. What test can 
you do on something that don't exist, and you can't break the problem into 
manageable steps?
For me it will be techno-fiction when it will be as man on Mars: Not yet 
done, but each step to go here is defined. Money is then what is requested to 
make it technical reality. Until you can't give a step by step R&D program 
(with some details in the first steps, and something more broad beyond) it is 
science fiction. Sorry to insist.

I am not against you or your idea, I try simply to put them (and you) on a 
productive track. You are convinced that this sci-fi idea can be turned into 
"tech-fi", well, do it!

Yvan Bozzonetti.



Yvan Bozzonetti.

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