Thaths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 7:31 AM, Perry E. Metzger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Thaths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>> And feed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, turning bayse >>> metals into golde. >> If someone had told you in 1950 that by about 2000, teenagers would >> get into trouble for making pornographic films of each other with >> their pocket sized mobile telephones and posting them on "social >> networking sites" (I don't even know how to explain that one), would >> you have believed them, or would you have laughed? > > There is something to what you say about the changes that time brings. > However, my contention is that predictions of the future have been off > the mark be they about flying cars, personal jet packs,
Both of those have violations of the laws of physics in them. In the case of flying cars, it is possible that energy densities might be high enough, weight small enough, and engines compact enough given nanotechnology, but not before. This has been understood for some decades. None the less, fools keep giving companies like Moller more money. In the case of personal jet packs, they work -- for about 45 seconds before they run out of fuel. Again, there is physics involved that makes them impossible for now. > The trouble I have with imagining a world in which nano machines clank > away in their molecular workshops twisting this double bond this way > and adjusting that hydroxyl group the other way is what sounds like > cyclical logic to me: You are made of nanomachines. If they're impossible, then how are you reading this right now? Inside you there are little molecular workshops twisting double bonds, adjusting hydroxyl groups, etc. > Where will the power to run these bazillion nano machines come from? If you are interested in how one can get power in to a molecular machine, I suggest reading Nanosystems for a detailed explanation of that. It goes into detail over the course of hundreds of pages. If you are asking how one can power industry in general... > Why, they will be come out of other nano machines building ever more > perfect solar panels and table-top Fleishman-Pons reactors. The latter is clearly impossible. The former, however, already essentially exists. 22.5% efficient solar panels ALREADY are on the market. It is just a question of driving their cost down enough. Right now they're about 3x too expensive, which isn't that bad at all. Now, although cold fusion is almost certainly is not possible, we ALREADY know how to get solar cells up north of about 60% efficiency using multiple absorbers, and we've already gotten north of 40% in the lab. Again, no real breakthroughs needed. Now, nanotechnology will make it possible to make these things far cheaper and more easily, but they're already clearly feasible so it isn't much of a stretch. By the way, if you really believe nanotechnological factories cannot build solar panels, I invite you to look at the nearest tree sometime. > I hesitate to believe in diamond ages because they sound like ponzi > schemes or overoptimistic extrapolations of Moore's law (of economics, > not physical science). You are surrounded by nanomachines growing out of every bit of the ground, flying in the air, swimming in the water around you, and chatting with you, and you wonder if they're possible? Perry -- Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
