Nanotechnology, speak?
Some time ago, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Eric K. Drexler, expressed the idea of the need to transfer technical systems from the macro to the micro level, by creating molecular machines - artificial similarities of biological molecules that work in living cells.
EK Drexler with a small group of enthusiasts began work on nanotechnology at Stanford University.
Initially, there were experiments with biosimilar structures: amino acids, enzymes (catalysts for biochemical reactions), natural proteins and tissues.
However, it soon comes to the realization that biosimilar structures (and all that they can create) are organics, which means their capabilities are limited. They lose their stability or decompose at elevated temperatures and pressures, cannot process solid material with great precision, act in aggressive environments, etc. And not all the required types of nanomechanisms can be constructed from biomolecules. It means that it will inevitably be necessary to use inorganic substances and crystalline structures.
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In addition, the design of bio-machines from biological components will require the invention of a huge number of new principles, methods, devices, and substances that would provide the necessary functions at the output.
Therefore, it makes no sense to abandon the grandiose amount of ideas and techniques developed in the development of technology. This is all that nature has not “thought of,” from the wheel to the computer. Therefore, in his works, Drexler substantiated in detail the methods for constructing at the atomic level a bearing and gearing, considered problems of sliding friction, etc.
At the same time, without biosimilar structures it is very difficult to manipulate individual atoms and molecules. Therefore, nanomachines must combine the properties of living and technical systems.
The main type of machines, according to Drexler, will be the so-called assembler, i.e. collector. Of any necessary atoms and molecules, he should be able to build nanosystems for any purpose — engines, machine tools, computing devices, communication devices, etc. It will be a universal molecular robot with exchangeable programs on “punched tapes” such as RNA or DNA chains. The process of changing the program might resemble a cell infected with a virus.
Drexler believes that it is enough for a collector to have about 10 thousand moving and stationary nodes, each of which is built on average of hundreds of atoms (about a million atoms in all - about the size of one-thirtieth medium bacteria).
Externally, the collector can be represented as a box with a “hand” manipulator with a length of one hundred atoms. The manipulator itself is simple, but it can operate with interchangeable tools of any complexity. The instruments are molecules with active reaction centers, i.e. areas capable of forming strong chemical bonds with other molecules. Inside the picker are devices that move the manipulator, replace the molecular tools in its grip and contain a program of all actions.
Like the ribosomes in the cell, the assemblers will work in tanks with a special liquid that is rich in raw materials, precursor molecules, and also “fuel” - molecules with a large supply of chemical energy.
Apparently, the “hand” will simply wait until the desired molecule, after passing through the election nozzle, in its chaotic motion hits a seizure. According to this principle, active sites of all enzymes work. There are bends in their structure, which in shape and size exactly correspond to the desired molecule - and no other. With fast enzymes, the processing speed is one million particles per second with sufficient concentration in the medium.
The collector's duty cycle can thus be repeated about a million times per second. This estimate can be confirmed by other, independent reasoning: the collector’s “hand” is about 50 million times shorter than a person’s hands, and so, if the equivalent of inertial loads is maintained, it can move about as many times faster.
For practical nanoengineering, chaotic thermal vibrations of atoms and molecules are very dangerous. They can prevent the robot arm from handling and installing parts with the desired accuracy. True, in certain cases they are useful, for example, when the manipulator “expects” a random swoop of the molecule to capture it. But for precision operations, heat fluctuations are harmful. For this reason, Drexler designed a very “thick” manipulator (a cone 30 nanometers in diameter and 100 in length) made of carbon atoms like a diamond lattice. This will give it such rigidity that its thermal displacements will not exceed half the diameter of the atom.
Managing collectors manually due to the tremendous speed of their work is, of course, impossible. This should be done by nanocomputers programmed in some ordinary language of control of industrial robots.
You can use a nanocomputer interface to communicate with these tiny machines or send commands over the radio. Light could be the appropriate control for nanomachines. It will be possible to use the entire range of known photochemical and photophysical effects. For example, light can change the shape of certain molecules. Atomic displacements occur in trillionths of a second. Finally, light can also become a source of energy for nanodevices.
As for nanocomputers, Drexler and here proposes to use mechanical principles. He developed the concept of a computing device, in which a binary code is implemented by two fixed positions of strong linear carbin molecules from 7-8 units with a length of 1 nm. These microscopic rods slide in a solid matrix along channels intersecting at right angles, so that one rod can block (or not block) the path to another. Three parallel channels intersected by the fourth, enough to form a universal logic cell. A set of such cells allows you to implement any process of computing or processing information.
The storage device with a capacity of one billion bytes will occupy the volume of bacteria in such a design - one cubic micron. The duration of the computational cycle, that is, the time for moving the rod from one position to another, with its insignificant dimensions, will be only 50 picoseconds. Therefore, the speed of such a mechanical system will be higher than that of the best modern microcomputers.
Is it possible to mass produce Drexler nanomachines? So far this seems hopelessly unprofitable. But it will be only until a self-replicating nanodevice is created one day (and perhaps even a terrible) day.
All types of such devices Drexler gave the general name "replicator", that is, the copyist. Listen carefully to this word. Maybe someday it will mark a new era in the life of mankind. It will begin if a single copyist is built. This will be enough for such a giant coup in all areas of human activity, which history may not have known yet.
Is it too hard to say? Let's get a look.
So, built one copier. Suppose that it is a thousand times more complicated than a collector, that is, the number of atoms in it is about a billion. Then, working all with the same more than moderate performance - a million atoms per second, the copyist will assemble his own copy in a thousand seconds, that is, in a quarter of an hour. Again, this assessment is confirmed by an independent consideration: at about the same time, the microbial cell divides under favorable conditions. A new copy will immediately begin to reproduce itself, and after 10 hours, about 70 billion copiers will float in a solution with construction and "energy" molecules, and in less than a day their mass will exceed a ton. This ton of super-complicated devices was received within 24 hours without any expenditure of human labor. And the second ton can be obtained not in a day, but ... correctly in just 15 minutes - just apply the solution. The question of the price probably disappears. A little emboldened and having built up over the week - another necessary mass of copyists, you can force them to fold them straight from themselves ... well, let's say, a bridge across the Bering Strait.
But the point, of course, is not quantitative records. In the “new era” that has come, the need for any qualified human labor will disappear.
For example, Drexler describes in detail how to build, that is, forgive, grow, a rocket engine with the help of copying machines.
The process is in the tank, at the bottom of which is placed the substrate - the base. The tank lid is hermetically closed, and the pumps fill it with a viscous fluid containing, as a suspension, copyists reprogrammed with new functions of assemblers.
In the center of the substrate there is a “germ” nanocomputer, which stores all the drawings of the future engine, and on the surface has a section to which collectors from the suspension suspended around can “stick”. Each of them receives information about the spatial position assigned to him relative to the embryo and the order to capture several other collectors from suspension with his manipulators. They also connect to the germ computer and receive similar orders. Within a few hours, a kind of crystalline structure grows in the liquid, outlining the shape of the future engine with the smallest details.
The pumps are switched on again, replacing the suspension of collectors in the tank with a solution of building materials. The germ’s computer gives the command, and part of the builders' skeleton sets it to release its neighbors, folds the manipulators and also leaches out, leaving the passages and channels that will be filled with the necessary atoms and molecules.
The special antennae of the remaining collectors rowed intensively, creating a continuous current of fluid in the channels containing “fuel” and raw materials and transporting waste and heat from the working area. The communication system, closed to the germ computer, transmits commands to each builder.
Where the greatest strength is required, collectors put carbon atoms in a diamond lattice. Where heat and corrosion resistance are critical, sapphire crystal lattice structures are created on the basis of alumina. In those places where the stresses are small, the collectors save the weight of the structure, less filling the pores. And over the entire volume of the future engine atom by atom, valves, compressors, sensors, etc. are laid out. All work will take less than a day of time and a minimum of human attention.
But after all, as a result, unlike conventional engines, a product turned out that does not have a single seam and gains a mass of about 10 times compared with modern designs. In its structure, it is perhaps more like a gem.
But these are still the simplest possibilities of nanotechnology. It is known from theory that rocket engines would work optimally if they could change their shape depending on the mode. Only with the use of nanotechnology it will become a reality. A structure stronger than steel, lighter than wood can, like muscles (using the same principle of gliding fibers), expand, contract and flex, changing the force and direction of thrust.
The spacecraft will be able to completely transform in about an hour. Nanotechnology, built into the space suit and providing the circulation of substances, will allow a person to stay in it for an unlimited time, besides turning the shell of the spacesuit into a “force multiplier”. A new era will begin in space exploration.
But will it still start on Earth? Pickers will make almost everything from virtually nothing, using any “pasture raw material”, water and air, where there are the main necessary elements - carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, aluminum and silicon; the rest, as well as for living organisms, will be required in micro-quantities. Auxiliary production and the so-called “group A” will disappear, and consumer goods will be produced “directly at home”.
Nanotechnology will restore the ozone layer, clean the soil, rivers, atmosphere, oceans from pollution, dismantle factories, dams, mines, seal radioactive waste into perpetual self-healing containers. Cities and roads will grow like grass. In the deserts, forests of photosynthetic elements will rise, which will give the right amount of electricity, nutrients and universal biofuels - ATP (adenosine triphosphate acid). Traces of industrial activity will almost disappear from the face of the Earth, agricultural land will shrink, gardens and natural ecosystems will cover most of the planet ...
There will be a new scientific revolution. Compatible with the size of the collectors devices, scientific equipment and full-scale models will be designed and implemented in the "metal" in seconds. Millions of parallel experiments of any complexity will go to them simultaneously and with immense speed, the results of which will generalize artificial intelligence and produce in the required form.
Education will be fundamentally different. Children will get pocket nanoconstructors that create moving models of animals, machines and space processes that they can control. Game and training nanomachines will open access to world knowledge, develop mental skills according to an individual program.
Unrecognizable change medicine. Consistently checking and, if necessary, “correcting” the molecules, cell by cell, organ by organ, nanomachines will restore health to any patient, and then simply will not allow any diseases and pathologies, including genetic ones. Man will live for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.
Labor in the modern sense, that is, "by the sweat of the face", which has been the main content of life since time immemorial, will cease to exist. The current concepts of value, price, money will also lose their meaning. According to Drexler, in such a completely renewed society, real Utopia will be realized, but not one of those who give a recipe for collective happiness in typical hostels. On the contrary, each person will receive the maximum variety of options for existence, the opportunity, without interfering with others, to freely choose and change their way of life, experiment, make mistakes and start over.
However, Drexler is not naive. He understands that the real picture of nanotechnology being may not turn out to be quite rosy, trying to foresee possible complications and outline ways out ...
***
And now, actually, for the sake of what I published this material here:
Source : Article by B.Ponkratov (with some reductions) “What are we going to do in the third millennium, or the last technocratic utopia.” (“Technique - Youth”, 1989 , No. 12, p. 18-22)
And the events described (studies and hypothesis of Drexler) occurred in the late 70s - early 80s of the last century ...
EK Drexler with a small group of enthusiasts began work on nanotechnology at Stanford University.
Initially, there were experiments with biosimilar structures: amino acids, enzymes (catalysts for biochemical reactions), natural proteins and tissues.
However, it soon comes to the realization that biosimilar structures (and all that they can create) are organics, which means their capabilities are limited. They lose their stability or decompose at elevated temperatures and pressures, cannot process solid material with great precision, act in aggressive environments, etc. And not all the required types of nanomechanisms can be constructed from biomolecules. It means that it will inevitably be necessary to use inorganic substances and crystalline structures.
')
In addition, the design of bio-machines from biological components will require the invention of a huge number of new principles, methods, devices, and substances that would provide the necessary functions at the output.
Therefore, it makes no sense to abandon the grandiose amount of ideas and techniques developed in the development of technology. This is all that nature has not “thought of,” from the wheel to the computer. Therefore, in his works, Drexler substantiated in detail the methods for constructing at the atomic level a bearing and gearing, considered problems of sliding friction, etc.
At the same time, without biosimilar structures it is very difficult to manipulate individual atoms and molecules. Therefore, nanomachines must combine the properties of living and technical systems.
The main type of machines, according to Drexler, will be the so-called assembler, i.e. collector. Of any necessary atoms and molecules, he should be able to build nanosystems for any purpose — engines, machine tools, computing devices, communication devices, etc. It will be a universal molecular robot with exchangeable programs on “punched tapes” such as RNA or DNA chains. The process of changing the program might resemble a cell infected with a virus.
Drexler believes that it is enough for a collector to have about 10 thousand moving and stationary nodes, each of which is built on average of hundreds of atoms (about a million atoms in all - about the size of one-thirtieth medium bacteria).
Externally, the collector can be represented as a box with a “hand” manipulator with a length of one hundred atoms. The manipulator itself is simple, but it can operate with interchangeable tools of any complexity. The instruments are molecules with active reaction centers, i.e. areas capable of forming strong chemical bonds with other molecules. Inside the picker are devices that move the manipulator, replace the molecular tools in its grip and contain a program of all actions.
Like the ribosomes in the cell, the assemblers will work in tanks with a special liquid that is rich in raw materials, precursor molecules, and also “fuel” - molecules with a large supply of chemical energy.
Apparently, the “hand” will simply wait until the desired molecule, after passing through the election nozzle, in its chaotic motion hits a seizure. According to this principle, active sites of all enzymes work. There are bends in their structure, which in shape and size exactly correspond to the desired molecule - and no other. With fast enzymes, the processing speed is one million particles per second with sufficient concentration in the medium.
The collector's duty cycle can thus be repeated about a million times per second. This estimate can be confirmed by other, independent reasoning: the collector’s “hand” is about 50 million times shorter than a person’s hands, and so, if the equivalent of inertial loads is maintained, it can move about as many times faster.
For practical nanoengineering, chaotic thermal vibrations of atoms and molecules are very dangerous. They can prevent the robot arm from handling and installing parts with the desired accuracy. True, in certain cases they are useful, for example, when the manipulator “expects” a random swoop of the molecule to capture it. But for precision operations, heat fluctuations are harmful. For this reason, Drexler designed a very “thick” manipulator (a cone 30 nanometers in diameter and 100 in length) made of carbon atoms like a diamond lattice. This will give it such rigidity that its thermal displacements will not exceed half the diameter of the atom.
Managing collectors manually due to the tremendous speed of their work is, of course, impossible. This should be done by nanocomputers programmed in some ordinary language of control of industrial robots.
You can use a nanocomputer interface to communicate with these tiny machines or send commands over the radio. Light could be the appropriate control for nanomachines. It will be possible to use the entire range of known photochemical and photophysical effects. For example, light can change the shape of certain molecules. Atomic displacements occur in trillionths of a second. Finally, light can also become a source of energy for nanodevices.
As for nanocomputers, Drexler and here proposes to use mechanical principles. He developed the concept of a computing device, in which a binary code is implemented by two fixed positions of strong linear carbin molecules from 7-8 units with a length of 1 nm. These microscopic rods slide in a solid matrix along channels intersecting at right angles, so that one rod can block (or not block) the path to another. Three parallel channels intersected by the fourth, enough to form a universal logic cell. A set of such cells allows you to implement any process of computing or processing information.
The storage device with a capacity of one billion bytes will occupy the volume of bacteria in such a design - one cubic micron. The duration of the computational cycle, that is, the time for moving the rod from one position to another, with its insignificant dimensions, will be only 50 picoseconds. Therefore, the speed of such a mechanical system will be higher than that of the best modern microcomputers.
Is it possible to mass produce Drexler nanomachines? So far this seems hopelessly unprofitable. But it will be only until a self-replicating nanodevice is created one day (and perhaps even a terrible) day.
All types of such devices Drexler gave the general name "replicator", that is, the copyist. Listen carefully to this word. Maybe someday it will mark a new era in the life of mankind. It will begin if a single copyist is built. This will be enough for such a giant coup in all areas of human activity, which history may not have known yet.
Is it too hard to say? Let's get a look.
So, built one copier. Suppose that it is a thousand times more complicated than a collector, that is, the number of atoms in it is about a billion. Then, working all with the same more than moderate performance - a million atoms per second, the copyist will assemble his own copy in a thousand seconds, that is, in a quarter of an hour. Again, this assessment is confirmed by an independent consideration: at about the same time, the microbial cell divides under favorable conditions. A new copy will immediately begin to reproduce itself, and after 10 hours, about 70 billion copiers will float in a solution with construction and "energy" molecules, and in less than a day their mass will exceed a ton. This ton of super-complicated devices was received within 24 hours without any expenditure of human labor. And the second ton can be obtained not in a day, but ... correctly in just 15 minutes - just apply the solution. The question of the price probably disappears. A little emboldened and having built up over the week - another necessary mass of copyists, you can force them to fold them straight from themselves ... well, let's say, a bridge across the Bering Strait.
But the point, of course, is not quantitative records. In the “new era” that has come, the need for any qualified human labor will disappear.
For example, Drexler describes in detail how to build, that is, forgive, grow, a rocket engine with the help of copying machines.
The process is in the tank, at the bottom of which is placed the substrate - the base. The tank lid is hermetically closed, and the pumps fill it with a viscous fluid containing, as a suspension, copyists reprogrammed with new functions of assemblers.
In the center of the substrate there is a “germ” nanocomputer, which stores all the drawings of the future engine, and on the surface has a section to which collectors from the suspension suspended around can “stick”. Each of them receives information about the spatial position assigned to him relative to the embryo and the order to capture several other collectors from suspension with his manipulators. They also connect to the germ computer and receive similar orders. Within a few hours, a kind of crystalline structure grows in the liquid, outlining the shape of the future engine with the smallest details.
The pumps are switched on again, replacing the suspension of collectors in the tank with a solution of building materials. The germ’s computer gives the command, and part of the builders' skeleton sets it to release its neighbors, folds the manipulators and also leaches out, leaving the passages and channels that will be filled with the necessary atoms and molecules.
The special antennae of the remaining collectors rowed intensively, creating a continuous current of fluid in the channels containing “fuel” and raw materials and transporting waste and heat from the working area. The communication system, closed to the germ computer, transmits commands to each builder.
Where the greatest strength is required, collectors put carbon atoms in a diamond lattice. Where heat and corrosion resistance are critical, sapphire crystal lattice structures are created on the basis of alumina. In those places where the stresses are small, the collectors save the weight of the structure, less filling the pores. And over the entire volume of the future engine atom by atom, valves, compressors, sensors, etc. are laid out. All work will take less than a day of time and a minimum of human attention.
But after all, as a result, unlike conventional engines, a product turned out that does not have a single seam and gains a mass of about 10 times compared with modern designs. In its structure, it is perhaps more like a gem.
But these are still the simplest possibilities of nanotechnology. It is known from theory that rocket engines would work optimally if they could change their shape depending on the mode. Only with the use of nanotechnology it will become a reality. A structure stronger than steel, lighter than wood can, like muscles (using the same principle of gliding fibers), expand, contract and flex, changing the force and direction of thrust.
The spacecraft will be able to completely transform in about an hour. Nanotechnology, built into the space suit and providing the circulation of substances, will allow a person to stay in it for an unlimited time, besides turning the shell of the spacesuit into a “force multiplier”. A new era will begin in space exploration.
But will it still start on Earth? Pickers will make almost everything from virtually nothing, using any “pasture raw material”, water and air, where there are the main necessary elements - carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, aluminum and silicon; the rest, as well as for living organisms, will be required in micro-quantities. Auxiliary production and the so-called “group A” will disappear, and consumer goods will be produced “directly at home”.
Nanotechnology will restore the ozone layer, clean the soil, rivers, atmosphere, oceans from pollution, dismantle factories, dams, mines, seal radioactive waste into perpetual self-healing containers. Cities and roads will grow like grass. In the deserts, forests of photosynthetic elements will rise, which will give the right amount of electricity, nutrients and universal biofuels - ATP (adenosine triphosphate acid). Traces of industrial activity will almost disappear from the face of the Earth, agricultural land will shrink, gardens and natural ecosystems will cover most of the planet ...
There will be a new scientific revolution. Compatible with the size of the collectors devices, scientific equipment and full-scale models will be designed and implemented in the "metal" in seconds. Millions of parallel experiments of any complexity will go to them simultaneously and with immense speed, the results of which will generalize artificial intelligence and produce in the required form.
Education will be fundamentally different. Children will get pocket nanoconstructors that create moving models of animals, machines and space processes that they can control. Game and training nanomachines will open access to world knowledge, develop mental skills according to an individual program.
Unrecognizable change medicine. Consistently checking and, if necessary, “correcting” the molecules, cell by cell, organ by organ, nanomachines will restore health to any patient, and then simply will not allow any diseases and pathologies, including genetic ones. Man will live for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.
Labor in the modern sense, that is, "by the sweat of the face", which has been the main content of life since time immemorial, will cease to exist. The current concepts of value, price, money will also lose their meaning. According to Drexler, in such a completely renewed society, real Utopia will be realized, but not one of those who give a recipe for collective happiness in typical hostels. On the contrary, each person will receive the maximum variety of options for existence, the opportunity, without interfering with others, to freely choose and change their way of life, experiment, make mistakes and start over.
However, Drexler is not naive. He understands that the real picture of nanotechnology being may not turn out to be quite rosy, trying to foresee possible complications and outline ways out ...
***
And now, actually, for the sake of what I published this material here:
Source : Article by B.Ponkratov (with some reductions) “What are we going to do in the third millennium, or the last technocratic utopia.” (“Technique - Youth”, 1989 , No. 12, p. 18-22)
And the events described (studies and hypothesis of Drexler) occurred in the late 70s - early 80s of the last century ...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/71064/
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