Bikewer
Penultimate Amazing
Nanocosm by William Atkinson.
I'm putting this in the science forum rather than "books recently read", as the ideas are better than the book....
I first read an overview of nanotechnology maybe 10 years ago; it may well have been the Drexeler book this guy refers to a lot. Thought I'd see what had been going on in the interim, and saw this one at the university bookstore. The library had it.
Not the best writing I've seen. The author is supposed to be a science writer, but he takes a rather loose approach to his subject, using lots of first-person interviews with the various researchers, peppered with his own comments. Researcher- "Nano-blah-blah-blah..." Author- "Wow! I said." That sort of thing. Trying to make tech subjects more "accessible" perhaps. But folks who would like to read about nanotechnology are probably rather tech-oriented already....
Also, the author spends a lot of time dissing Drexeler and others who he refers to as "nanoboosters"; people who's idea is "SOS" (same, only smaller). The guys who want mini-machines, tiny gear wheels and motors, and tiny molecular assemblers and such.
Pie in the sky, according to the author, who sees the quality research being done in other fields and "outside the box".
Some of the emerging and in-progress technologies explored:
1 Spectrographic analysis of individual atoms and molecules.
2 Optical CPUs for computers, using far more density and far less heat than silicon transistors.
3. "Photonic" paper, essentially re-writable electronically. Plus paint-on screens and displays, with resolutions equivalent to the best display technology now, but hardly thicker than a coat of paint.
4. All sorts of new materiels, some copied from naturally-occurring stuff like mollusc shells, which promise enormous increase in strength and impact protection.
The field of Biomimicry (his term) will be big stuff.
5 Vastly improved heat control and cooling using quantum tunnelling effects in a vacuum to funnel energetic electons away from the heat source in one direction only.
This would result in vastly more efficient CPUs, air-conditioning units, and so forth. The author says a whole-house unit using this technology would be perhaps 5"X 5".
Prototypes are already being produced.
6 Improved sealing films for all sorts of products (including tires and tennis balls) that would greatly decrease pressurized air leakage.
7. Several different approaches to producing nanoscale switches for computing devices, which would function as silicon transistors do now. (One of my science news feeds just reported on an MIT experiment that managed to manipulate a molecule inside of a "buckyball" to act as a switch.) All these would allow faster, denser computer CPUs that would function on orders of magnitude more efficiently than the best today.
8. Too many different technologies in medicine to ennumerate; including using buckyballs to transport tailored molecules to disease sites, carbon nanotubes to provide extremely rapid and accurate analysis and diagnosis, etc.
9. The space elevator. Yes, Atkinson thinks it will work. All we need to do is produce carbon nanotubes in 100 meter lengths, and develop a suitable matrix. (the best now are only a few mms, as I recall) He does not see this as being anchored to a geosynchronous counter-weight sattelite, as some has suggested; the strength of the materials alone, suitable guyed to bedrock using nanotube cables, would be sufficient.
Lots more, of course. Can't strongly reccomend this book, as one has to skim through lots of dross to get to the goodies...But the goodies are interesting.
I'm putting this in the science forum rather than "books recently read", as the ideas are better than the book....
I first read an overview of nanotechnology maybe 10 years ago; it may well have been the Drexeler book this guy refers to a lot. Thought I'd see what had been going on in the interim, and saw this one at the university bookstore. The library had it.
Not the best writing I've seen. The author is supposed to be a science writer, but he takes a rather loose approach to his subject, using lots of first-person interviews with the various researchers, peppered with his own comments. Researcher- "Nano-blah-blah-blah..." Author- "Wow! I said." That sort of thing. Trying to make tech subjects more "accessible" perhaps. But folks who would like to read about nanotechnology are probably rather tech-oriented already....
Also, the author spends a lot of time dissing Drexeler and others who he refers to as "nanoboosters"; people who's idea is "SOS" (same, only smaller). The guys who want mini-machines, tiny gear wheels and motors, and tiny molecular assemblers and such.
Pie in the sky, according to the author, who sees the quality research being done in other fields and "outside the box".
Some of the emerging and in-progress technologies explored:
1 Spectrographic analysis of individual atoms and molecules.
2 Optical CPUs for computers, using far more density and far less heat than silicon transistors.
3. "Photonic" paper, essentially re-writable electronically. Plus paint-on screens and displays, with resolutions equivalent to the best display technology now, but hardly thicker than a coat of paint.
4. All sorts of new materiels, some copied from naturally-occurring stuff like mollusc shells, which promise enormous increase in strength and impact protection.
The field of Biomimicry (his term) will be big stuff.
5 Vastly improved heat control and cooling using quantum tunnelling effects in a vacuum to funnel energetic electons away from the heat source in one direction only.
This would result in vastly more efficient CPUs, air-conditioning units, and so forth. The author says a whole-house unit using this technology would be perhaps 5"X 5".
Prototypes are already being produced.
6 Improved sealing films for all sorts of products (including tires and tennis balls) that would greatly decrease pressurized air leakage.
7. Several different approaches to producing nanoscale switches for computing devices, which would function as silicon transistors do now. (One of my science news feeds just reported on an MIT experiment that managed to manipulate a molecule inside of a "buckyball" to act as a switch.) All these would allow faster, denser computer CPUs that would function on orders of magnitude more efficiently than the best today.
8. Too many different technologies in medicine to ennumerate; including using buckyballs to transport tailored molecules to disease sites, carbon nanotubes to provide extremely rapid and accurate analysis and diagnosis, etc.
9. The space elevator. Yes, Atkinson thinks it will work. All we need to do is produce carbon nanotubes in 100 meter lengths, and develop a suitable matrix. (the best now are only a few mms, as I recall) He does not see this as being anchored to a geosynchronous counter-weight sattelite, as some has suggested; the strength of the materials alone, suitable guyed to bedrock using nanotube cables, would be sufficient.
Lots more, of course. Can't strongly reccomend this book, as one has to skim through lots of dross to get to the goodies...But the goodies are interesting.
