Hi - I'm writing a science fiction novel, and I'd like the tech that I describe to be as solidly plausible as possible. My question is this:
If nano fabricators become commonplace devices in homes of the future, like printers are today, what matter would be fed into them to form the objects they make? A printer uses ink and paper, what would a nano fabricator use?
Say you wanted to fabricate a computer, is it likely that you would need a source of carbon, silicone, and a reservoir of more unusual elements, like copper? If so, how many different elements would be necessary to fabricate most objects (e.g. food, computers, tools).
Also, is it likely that the raw material would be introduced as solid cartridges of matter, or dissolved in liquids perhaps? To me (with my very limited knowledge of physics and chemistry) it seems plausible that solid slabs of mixed elements might be quite efficient for this purpose.
Any thoughts or educated guesses regarding this quandary would be very welcome.
In many of the articles I have read on nano technology it focused on silicon as being the primary element with regards to nano machines. This is because of it properties mainly the property of being linked to form different shape molecules. This becomes the "body" of the nano. However there are two main factors.
Size - The smaller you go with regards to nano machines the body can use the more of a chemical machine and less of a mechanical machine it becomes. To further clarify would be using a nano machine that mechanically breaks the bond of a particular molecule. To make a smaller machine that did the same job it would have to be part or even completely chemical.
Job - What the machine does. One of the articles I have read talked of artificial red blood cells. Rather than being cells they were simply small air tanks. Now there is a limit to the size it can be but essentially the larger the tank the more air it can store. So once the oxygen in your lungs gets replaced with CO2 and your body begins to starve, smaller nanos (more chemical machines that mechanical machines) pick up on the signals that would cause you to gasp for air and would trigger the tanks to slowly release oxygen to neighboring cells. This would then suppress the need to gasp for air until the nano tanks ran out. The tanks would then fill up as you breathed just like red blood cells. Divers could then go under for a few hours on a single breath.
With regards to using nano to fabricate larger common place items then sand is still your best source. A container of sand would contain the elements from the periodic table of elements necessary to construct most common place items. The nanos would just have to break the molecular bonds of the minerals/rocks in the sand and reformed to make the new molecules that will comprise the item being made.
For a scifi novel, the best thing you can use as "fuel" for a nano fabrication machine would be sand. Sand is mostly quartz which is silicon dioxide (SO2) but it contains much more. It can contain some rocks/minerals such as iron, mica, granite, gypsum, gold, emerald/ruby (same molecular composition), obsidian, limestone, etc.
Size - The smaller you go with regards to nano machines the body can use the more of a chemical machine and less of a mechanical machine it becomes. To further clarify would be using a nano machine that mechanically breaks the bond of a particular molecule. To make a smaller machine that did the same job it would have to be part or even completely chemical.
Job - What the machine does. One of the articles I have read talked of artificial red blood cells. Rather than being cells they were simply small air tanks. Now there is a limit to the size it can be but essentially the larger the tank the more air it can store. So once the oxygen in your lungs gets replaced with CO2 and your body begins to starve, smaller nanos (more chemical machines that mechanical machines) pick up on the signals that would cause you to gasp for air and would trigger the tanks to slowly release oxygen to neighboring cells. This would then suppress the need to gasp for air until the nano tanks ran out. The tanks would then fill up as you breathed just like red blood cells. Divers could then go under for a few hours on a single breath.
With regards to using nano to fabricate larger common place items then sand is still your best source. A container of sand would contain the elements from the periodic table of elements necessary to construct most common place items. The nanos would just have to break the molecular bonds of the minerals/rocks in the sand and reformed to make the new molecules that will comprise the item being made.
For a scifi novel, the best thing you can use as "fuel" for a nano fabrication machine would be sand. Sand is mostly quartz which is silicon dioxide (SO2) but it contains much more. It can contain some rocks/minerals such as iron, mica, granite, gypsum, gold, emerald/ruby (same molecular composition), obsidian, limestone, etc.
QUOTE (Atari+Apr 29 2008, 04:06 PM)
Hi - I'm writing a science fiction novel, and I'd like the tech that I describe to be as solidly plausible as possible. My question is this:
If nano fabricators become commonplace devices in homes of the future, like printers are today, what matter would be fed into them to form the objects they make? A printer uses ink and paper, what would a nano fabricator use?
Say you wanted to fabricate a computer, is it likely that you would need a source of carbon, silicone, and a reservoir of more unusual elements, like copper? If so, how many different elements would be necessary to fabricate most objects (e.g. food, computers, tools).
Also, is it likely that the raw material would be introduced as solid cartridges of matter, or dissolved in liquids perhaps? To me (with my very limited knowledge of physics and chemistry) it seems plausible that solid slabs of mixed elements might be quite efficient for this purpose.
Any thoughts or educated guesses regarding this quandary would be very welcome.
There would be a wide variety of materials. Depending on the type of nano tech you are creating, you'd need different materians. Inertial Clouds (or utility fogs as they are commonly known) would require aluminum oxide, silicone, copper, and likely lithium, zinc, and a few other materials, and those are a farly simple form of nanotech. If you wanted to create a t-100 style nano-liquid, you'd need silicone, copper, lithium, zinc, titanium, iron, magnetite, and so on and so forth....
Basically, as a fellow sci-fi author, my advice is to "brush over" the technical aspects which you can't easily research. For instance, in my sci-fi story in progress, the only passage in which I describe the technical aspect of the form of warp drive (Alcubierre Metric) used for interstellar travel consists entirely of one of the main characters saying
To me, it's far more important that sci-fi technologies behave realistically than it is to accurately describe their operations. If I were you, I'd simply say "We put in the raw materials, out comes the nano. Ask an engineer if you want to know more."
(assuming one of your characters is describing it. If you're describing it narratively, I'd simply describe the process of feeding in raw materials in whatever form those materials take at room temperature, then describe a process of running the machine, like pushing a few buttons and monitoring temperatures and viscosities and so on.)
If nano fabricators become commonplace devices in homes of the future, like printers are today, what matter would be fed into them to form the objects they make? A printer uses ink and paper, what would a nano fabricator use?
Say you wanted to fabricate a computer, is it likely that you would need a source of carbon, silicone, and a reservoir of more unusual elements, like copper? If so, how many different elements would be necessary to fabricate most objects (e.g. food, computers, tools).
Also, is it likely that the raw material would be introduced as solid cartridges of matter, or dissolved in liquids perhaps? To me (with my very limited knowledge of physics and chemistry) it seems plausible that solid slabs of mixed elements might be quite efficient for this purpose.
Any thoughts or educated guesses regarding this quandary would be very welcome.
There would be a wide variety of materials. Depending on the type of nano tech you are creating, you'd need different materians. Inertial Clouds (or utility fogs as they are commonly known) would require aluminum oxide, silicone, copper, and likely lithium, zinc, and a few other materials, and those are a farly simple form of nanotech. If you wanted to create a t-100 style nano-liquid, you'd need silicone, copper, lithium, zinc, titanium, iron, magnetite, and so on and so forth....
Basically, as a fellow sci-fi author, my advice is to "brush over" the technical aspects which you can't easily research. For instance, in my sci-fi story in progress, the only passage in which I describe the technical aspect of the form of warp drive (Alcubierre Metric) used for interstellar travel consists entirely of one of the main characters saying
QUOTE
"And before you ask, no, I don't know exactly how it works. Something to do with Goldstone Bosons and Alcubierre Matrices and brane-curvature... I'm afraid I didn't pay close attention in science classes."
To me, it's far more important that sci-fi technologies behave realistically than it is to accurately describe their operations. If I were you, I'd simply say "We put in the raw materials, out comes the nano. Ask an engineer if you want to know more."
(assuming one of your characters is describing it. If you're describing it narratively, I'd simply describe the process of feeding in raw materials in whatever form those materials take at room temperature, then describe a process of running the machine, like pushing a few buttons and monitoring temperatures and viscosities and so on.)
The full-on atomic assemblers you are pretty advanced technology. I think that to start with, the home fabricators will mostly assemble using prefabricated building blocks that have been manufactured using specialist machines.
Anything built using these blocks could be easily recycled back into the original blocks, so they could be used to build something else. Actually this recycling becomes essential, otherwise you need to throw away everything once you have eventually finished using it.
But for the atomic assemblers you are suggesting. Since diamond is the most durable material, mostly what they will need is carbon. Most other elements will only be required in such tiny amounts that they could be easily included with the original machine. Carbon could be piped to a house in a gas form as methane or in a liquid form as methanol.
If materials softer than diamond are wanted, rubber, cellulose or plastic mostly will only require extra hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. The methane already provides more hydrogen than you will need, the oxygen and nitrogen are easily available from the air.
If any other elements are needed, maybe your house could include somthing similar to the roots of trees that extract trace elements from the soil under the house.
Anything built using these blocks could be easily recycled back into the original blocks, so they could be used to build something else. Actually this recycling becomes essential, otherwise you need to throw away everything once you have eventually finished using it.
But for the atomic assemblers you are suggesting. Since diamond is the most durable material, mostly what they will need is carbon. Most other elements will only be required in such tiny amounts that they could be easily included with the original machine. Carbon could be piped to a house in a gas form as methane or in a liquid form as methanol.
If materials softer than diamond are wanted, rubber, cellulose or plastic mostly will only require extra hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. The methane already provides more hydrogen than you will need, the oxygen and nitrogen are easily available from the air.
If any other elements are needed, maybe your house could include somthing similar to the roots of trees that extract trace elements from the soil under the house.
QUOTE (N O M+Apr 29 2008, 10:55 PM)
If any other elements are needed, maybe your house could include somthing similar to the roots of trees that extract trace elements from the soil under the house.
This is similar to the idea used by Neal Stephenson in The Diamond Age, where all "Matter Compilers" are hooked into "The Feed" - more appropriately this would be roughly analogous to the Internet, with all of our PC's hooked in and downloading whatever data is needed. Instead of downloading data, his MCs would "download" the raw materials used to make whatever items were needed. Specifically mentioned are mattresses, clothes, books, and food.
Good luck with your work.
This is similar to the idea used by Neal Stephenson in The Diamond Age, where all "Matter Compilers" are hooked into "The Feed" - more appropriately this would be roughly analogous to the Internet, with all of our PC's hooked in and downloading whatever data is needed. Instead of downloading data, his MCs would "download" the raw materials used to make whatever items were needed. Specifically mentioned are mattresses, clothes, books, and food.
Good luck with your work.
Hey - Nice feedback guys, thanks for all the intense brain-squeezing. The 'feed' from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age is a really elegant concept - getting raw materials piped into your home like broadband, gas or water. But what happens when you need a portable version of the device, to use away from amenities?
I'm writing about the dawn of time travel, and one of my characters gets transported to an alternate version of earth in the middle ages, equipped with a portable 'field' nano-compiler among other things. In this scenario, perhaps a few cartridges of rare elements could be carried as supplies, and sand/soil/coal could be scavenged locally as bulk building materials that provide the silicon and carbon.
Within this scenario, does this process sound plausible?
I'm writing about the dawn of time travel, and one of my characters gets transported to an alternate version of earth in the middle ages, equipped with a portable 'field' nano-compiler among other things. In this scenario, perhaps a few cartridges of rare elements could be carried as supplies, and sand/soil/coal could be scavenged locally as bulk building materials that provide the silicon and carbon.
Within this scenario, does this process sound plausible?
QUOTE
Hey - Nice feedback guys, thanks for all the intense brain-squeezing. The 'feed' from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age is a really elegant concept - getting raw materials piped into your home like broadband, gas or water. But what happens when you need a portable version of the device, to use away from amenities?
I believe that items could be "recycled" - fed into the MCs to be "decompiled", and their raw materials reused for subsequent compilations. Presumably any material could be fed into the MC to be decompiled. I rather like the previously suggested use of sand.
QUOTE (->
| QUOTE |
| Hey - Nice feedback guys, thanks for all the intense brain-squeezing. The 'feed' from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age is a really elegant concept - getting raw materials piped into your home like broadband, gas or water. But what happens when you need a portable version of the device, to use away from amenities? |
I believe that items could be "recycled" - fed into the MCs to be "decompiled", and their raw materials reused for subsequent compilations. Presumably any material could be fed into the MC to be decompiled. I rather like the previously suggested use of sand.
I'm writing about the dawn of time travel, and one of my characters gets transported to an alternate version of earth in the middle ages, equipped with a portable 'field' nano-compiler among other things. In this scenario, perhaps a few cartridges of rare elements could be carried as supplies, and sand/soil/coal could be scavenged locally as bulk building materials that provide the silicon and carbon.
Within this scenario, does this process sound plausible?
Given the many sci-fi novels that have much, much more implausible concepts in use, I'd say you're pretty safe - but then again, I'm not a nanotechnologist. You've at least done your homework in realizing that a source of raw materials is necessary.
QUOTE (Atari+May 1 2008, 01:57 AM)
I'm writing about the dawn of time travel, and one of my characters gets transported to an alternate version of earth in the middle ages, equipped with a portable 'field' nano-compiler among other things. In this scenario, perhaps a few cartridges of rare elements could be carried as supplies, and sand/soil/coal could be scavenged locally as bulk building materials that provide the silicon and carbon.
Within this scenario, does this process sound plausible?
Certainly plausible.
Other than the time travel bit, some of this has been done before. Read Strata by Terry Pratchett.
If you have a nanofabricator, even a small one, you could build anything at all. With a small nanofabricator, you build a big one. Then the world's your mollusc.
But one thing that could limit your time-traveller character. Provided you don't have some super advanced AI with him, what he can build is limited by the templates he has available. So unless he has the plans for a nanofabricator, he can't build one. Pratchett's book had a limiter in the fabricators so they couldn't print their equvalent of money.
Your character can't fabricates gold coins, unless he has plenty of gold, but he can easily make diamonds or most other gems.
Within this scenario, does this process sound plausible?
Certainly plausible.
Other than the time travel bit, some of this has been done before. Read Strata by Terry Pratchett.
If you have a nanofabricator, even a small one, you could build anything at all. With a small nanofabricator, you build a big one. Then the world's your mollusc.
But one thing that could limit your time-traveller character. Provided you don't have some super advanced AI with him, what he can build is limited by the templates he has available. So unless he has the plans for a nanofabricator, he can't build one. Pratchett's book had a limiter in the fabricators so they couldn't print their equvalent of money.
Your character can't fabricates gold coins, unless he has plenty of gold, but he can easily make diamonds or most other gems.
QUOTE (Atari+Apr 30 2008, 08:57 AM)
Hey - Nice feedback guys, thanks for all the intense brain-squeezing. The 'feed' from Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age is a really elegant concept - getting raw materials piped into your home like broadband, gas or water. But what happens when you need a portable version of the device, to use away from amenities?
I'm writing about the dawn of time travel, and one of my characters gets transported to an alternate version of earth in the middle ages, equipped with a portable 'field' nano-compiler among other things. In this scenario, perhaps a few cartridges of rare elements could be carried as supplies, and sand/soil/coal could be scavenged locally as bulk building materials that provide the silicon and carbon.
Within this scenario, does this process sound plausible?
In answer to your question: Yup!
As a discussion point, (probably not worth much, but still...) my sci-fi story also has a protagonist who uses a lot of nanotech and has traveled back in time at one point. He doesn't have a fabricator, he travels back only to the mid 1990's, and he does so using a wormhole, instead of a time machine, but still. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case it gets anyone thinking.
N O M, have you considered the flammability of nano-scale diamond machines?
Seems to me like a cloud of them would be quite explosive...
EDIT: Has anyone considered a particle-scale assembler? One could literally make any element, given enough of any other element.. Take a few electrons here, a few protons there, mix em all together, and voila: Alchemists, eat your heart out!
I'm writing about the dawn of time travel, and one of my characters gets transported to an alternate version of earth in the middle ages, equipped with a portable 'field' nano-compiler among other things. In this scenario, perhaps a few cartridges of rare elements could be carried as supplies, and sand/soil/coal could be scavenged locally as bulk building materials that provide the silicon and carbon.
Within this scenario, does this process sound plausible?
In answer to your question: Yup!
As a discussion point, (probably not worth much, but still...) my sci-fi story also has a protagonist who uses a lot of nanotech and has traveled back in time at one point. He doesn't have a fabricator, he travels back only to the mid 1990's, and he does so using a wormhole, instead of a time machine, but still. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case it gets anyone thinking.
N O M, have you considered the flammability of nano-scale diamond machines?
Seems to me like a cloud of them would be quite explosive...
EDIT: Has anyone considered a particle-scale assembler? One could literally make any element, given enough of any other element.. Take a few electrons here, a few protons there, mix em all together, and voila: Alchemists, eat your heart out!
Maxwell's Demon! Just paint 'em red, so we can find 'em again! 
PhysOrg scientific forums are totally dedicated to science, physics, and technology. Besides topical forums such as nanotechnology, quantum physics, silicon and III-V technology, applied physics, materials, space and others, you can also join our news and publications discussions. We also provide an off-topic forum category. If you need specific help on a scientific problem or have a question related to physics or technology, visit the PhysOrg Forums. Here you’ll find experts from various fields online every day.
To quit out of "lo-fi" mode and return to the regular forums, please click here.