Nanotechnology: The Future of Everything

Nanotechnology: The Future of Everything

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[Music] nanotechnology is moving from the realm of Science Fiction to reality and in the process these tiny Technologies are offering giant [Music] opportunities nanotechnology and Nanobots are rapidly emerging as some of the most revolutionary Technologies of our time holding the potential transform Industries ranging from medicine to manufacturing imagine microscopic robot spots a thousand times smaller than a human hair they can perform intricate tasks like repairing damaged tissues targeting cancer cells or even constructing materials at the atomic level these tiny machines could revolutionize how we diagnose and treat disease engineer new materials and address Global challenges like pollution and resource scarcity with the promise of unparalleled precision and versatility nanotechnology could reshape the future enabling innovations that were once only imaginable in the Realms of Science Fiction from the earliest days of Science Fiction artificial life and robots have been a prominent theme however these creations were often humanlike such as aso's Androids or Frankenstein's monster rather than small scale machines they began as large Advanced beings quite the opposite of how life on Earth originated with tiny small microbes capable of little more than self-replication these small machines are now seen as more complex than their larger robotic counterparts in some ways this perception has proven accurate with our large bodies and tools it's easier for us to construct objects on a macroscopic scale rather than at the microscopic level let alone the atomic level it was rightly assumed that building at the Nano scale would be more challenging than creating larger machines and robots early science fiction did not feature much nanotechnology while miniaturization occasionally appeared like entire civilizations existing under microscopes these were usually just shrunken versions of larger things ainza luchs from gor travels the idea of true nanotechnology as we understand it today began to take shape in the 1950s and 1960s Richard Fan's 1959 lecture there's plenty of room at the bottom laid the theoretical foundation for constructing machines at Atomic and molecular scales though not a fictional work it inspired sci-fi writers to explore the possibilities of Nano scale technology the term nanotechnology itself did not emerge until Eric drex's engines of Creation The Coming era of nanotechnology published in 1986 this groundbreaking work popularized the concept and profoundly influenced both scientists and the public in it Drex Envision molecular manufacturing that could revolutionize Industries medicine and daily life an idea that sparked excitement and debate about nanotechnology's potential he also introduced the now famous greay goo scenario a cautionary Tale in which self-replicating Nanobots might disassemble everything eventually covering the entire world in a silver sea of replicating machines nanotechnology encompasses more than just Nanobots though people often question whether such tiny robots are even possible this is one example of a future technology where I'm willing to say flat out and unequivocally yes that's because we already have tiny machines cells and viruses and most life on Earth exists at the microscopic level in a sense one could argue that Earth has already experienced a green goo event through the emergence of life itself at some point simple self-replicating organisms arose spread across the planet and evolve to cover every surface from mountaintops to Oceanic trenches even thriving in Lakes buried miles beneath ice this proliferation of life turned much of the land green dramatically altered the atmosphere to be oxygen rich and even affected Earth's geology whether life emerged through random chance and darwinian pressure or through some form of intelligent design the fact that it and we exist suggest that we can use our own intelligence to design similarly tiny machines tailored for specific tasks of all choosing at the very least we can hijack existing microorganisms or viruses and modify them for our purposes something we have already been doing for centuries as evidenced by our use of yeast for baking and brewing in fact humans have long lived symbiotically with adapted or hijacked microorganisms such as the bacteria in our guts or the mitochondria in our cells this raises the question of whether humanity is truly defined by our DNA given that many of the cells within our bodies don't carry human DNA nevertheless we are well on our way to creating Nanobots and nanotechnology is already a significant part of modern engineering from semiconductors to graphine our current technology makes extensive use of Nano scale engineering it's also worth discussing the scale involved as terms like Nano scale microscopic and atomic scale are often used interchangeably however they each represent different levels of size and complexity with implications for how we might approach building and utilizing these tiny machines for those curious the word micro comes the Greek word micros meaning small or tiny it was introduced as a metric prefix in 1873 and denotes 1 million a micrometer or more commonly a micron represents a millionth of a meter this is slightly larger than the wavelength or size of a photon in the visible spectrum and for that reason it sets the limit of what you can see with a standard microscope no matter how well it's built you cannot resolve objects much smaller than the wavelength of light being used to view them the word microscope has been around since the early 1600s and the device itself is slightly older the prefix is thus quite fitting for the scale Millie has in millimeter actually means thousand in Latin so using as a prefix for a thousandth is reasonable kilo the prefix 4,000 as in kilog 1,000 G comes from the Greek word 4,000 ,000 Nano on the other hand is Greek for dwarf or very small it was adapted as the prefix for a billionth in 1960 which is why you don't see references to nanotechnology before then for measurements on the atomic scale we previously use the angstrom which is one order of magnitude smaller 10 to 10 m this unit has found out of favor in many circles in favor of standard metric prefixes though it's still used a lot the angstrom is particularly useful in scientific context as it corresponds to atomic scale measurements for example molecular Bond lengths and atomic radi fall below the nanomer scale and are often expressed in angstroms Picos a trillionth of meter are also useful at the scale with 100 picometers equal to 1 angstrom and 1,000 picometers equal to 1 nanometer the prefix Pico meaning small amount or bit in Spanish was adopted in 19 60 along with the Nano and fto prefixes fto is derived from the Danish War 4 15 and represents a quadrillionth 10 to the -5 Beyond fento or ad which comes from the Danish for 18 then zepto and yako introduced in the early 1990s these prefixes mean one sextilion 10-21 and one septian 10 netive 24 respectively and our deriv from the Latin and Greek for seven and 8 while the fomo scale is useful in nuclear physics for measuring Atomic nuclei and the atomo scale for subatomic particles zepto and yako are rarely used for distance however we sometimes use zepto seconds to measure Quantum time scales and yrs for the mass of subatomic particles in speculative fiction terms like fotech and picotech appear occasionally although these aren't all focused today picotech generally enfor techn te ology built from just a handful of atoms like the simplest molecules by contrast nanotech involves machines contain thousands millions or even billions of atoms while biological cells and most organel are microscopic Nanos scare for a structure smaller than these yet still composed of vast numbers of atoms for instance a strand of DNA contains about 180 billion atoms many viruses are in the billion atom range and even very small viruses like the polio virus contain several million atoms fento technology involves constructing devices using protons neutrons and other subatomic particles creating technology at the subatomic scale we'll touch on these ideas a bit more toward the end for our purposes today however nanotechnology will refer to any machine at the virus scale or smaller but still made of mundane atoms we wouldn't expect a complete devel to operate at the picom meter scale rather a piece of Pico technology might be a small component of a nanobot such as a gear made from a graphine sheet with a diameter of perhaps a dozen atoms I doubt Pico Bots could exist and we discuss fento technology it not involves Concepts like space-time warping String Theory applications or other exotic forms of matter this is an important distinction because in the late 20th century we tended to believe we could keep miniaturizing technology indefinitely despite already knowing that atoms are the smallest building blocks and that quantum mechanics present significant challenges at that scale nowadays we are effectively working at that scale albeit in relatively crude and simple ways and we don't think there's much lower to go we will examine the sub subatomic scale and Concepts like string theory next week and we will see that's not really a smaller scale by much even there to understand the limits of Technology we need to explore the physical constraints on matter and energy but before delving into those it's worth considering why nanotech is so desirable in the first place I don't recall the first time I heard the term nanotechnology probably during an episode of Star Trek the Next Generation however the first time I saw it used to its full potential and really began to think about it was in my mid teens thanks to my then favorite comic series Doom 2099 I'd gotten into comic books after watching the X animated series from the 99s and eventually picked up their cyberpunk Inspire 2099 titles starting with X-Men 2099 this was also my gateway to the wider cyberpunk genre but there were several other titles in Marvel's 2099 lineup that I got introduced to in a crossover event because of that I wasn't initially aware that Dr Doom was a villain and I took to him right away admittedly I tend to take the villains in a lot of sci-fi stories in jom 2099 Dr Doom wakes up in the year 2099 with postal Amnesia later in the series he expresses surprise at how little nanotechnology is used given its incredible versatility he describes how it could turn garbage into diamonds or clean up oil spills to produce food his speculation and impressive use of nanotech really spoked my curiosity in truth nanotchnology often goes underused in science fiction because like teleportation time travel or star replicators and Hollow deex it can easily create over-the-top capabilities it leads to questions like why don't they just replicate entire armadas of ships or teleport viruses out of sick people's bodies when nanotech does appear in sci-fi it's either heavily restricted by the author or treated like a magic wand capable of anything this latter approach has some legitimacy as nanotechnology could theoretically accomplish an astonishing range of tasks how however it also has very real limitations for example you couldn't take a random pile of garbage and turn into diamonds because diamonds are composed of carbon atoms and most garbage contains only a small proportion of carbon today we are exploring nanotechnology a f poised reshape everything from medicine to manufacturing but what if the survival of life and the rise of civilizations depends not on what they create but on the very air they breathe in this month's episode on the Paradox we discuss air and uncover how planetary atmospheres might hold the answer to why the stars remain silent and what that means for our sour for alien life you may enjoy this exclusive episode alongside faithless a sojourn Audio Drama following cyan vandrick a former inler Tor fugitive heretic as he embarks on a perilous Journey Through the sanctum to uncover ancient truths and find his beloved valendra featuring a stellar cast it's an unforgettable chapter of the award-winning soj and series an epic new Sci-Fi series set in the Tantalus cluster a collection of star systems a drift in The Intergalactic void faithless in my exclusive episode The for me Paradox air can be enjoyed over at nebula the Creator owned streaming platform where all SFI episodes air early and AD free along with tons of bonus content from myself and many other creators sign up at go. nea.org that's less than $3 a month nebula also offers lifetime memberships and gift cards so you can share exclusive content like faithless and sfi's nebula specials with friends and family even if you had enough carbin there's that challenge of making a probe that's one atom wide to place each atom precisely in situations like this it would likely make more sense for tiny robots to construct a large or machine that could focus on manufacturing diamonds from a carbon feed stock something we can already do today nonetheless it's a good place to introduce the sticky fingerless problem the sticky finger problem in nanotechnology refers to the difficulty that tiny machines or Nanobots encounter when trying to manipulate individual atoms or molecules due to the relative strength of intermolecular forces at the nanoc scale forces like vander's interactions electrostatic forces and even slight adhesion from moisture can cause objects to stick to the tool was used by Nanobots making precise manipulation challenging indeed there's a pretty strong debate on if it's not just challenging but Flatout impossible to do single atom manipulations we deep dived it a bit more in our episode on the Santa Claus machine where we also discuss Star Trek style replicators and the limitations on 3D printer scale and speed single atom manipulations AR necessary for Effective nanotechnology in fact I would classify single atom manipulation as Tech and any changes made to Atomic nuclei as fotch even handling small molecules like water sugar methane or a particles fren the picot scale this distinction helps highlight the difference between the two a nanobot might repair tissue by identifying damaged DNA strands and eliminating them to prevent replication allowing undamaged strands to replicate on the other hand a picobot could potentially repair the damage sections of those strands directly directly here the emphasis is on manipulation rather than just detection which is worth noting DNA strands although long and thin have a relatively large diameter compared to basic molecules about 2 nanom in DNA's case given that they can be up to a billion times longer than their diameter DNA resembles more of a long wire or yarn than a pencil or needle and it tends to spool up like a ball of yarn within the cell nucleus if we could detect and repair or remove damaged DNA inside living cells we would essentially have the key to biological immortality there are other aspects of Aging such as plaque and waist buildups and arteries but these are simpler problems for Nanobots to address memory degradation over time is another issue though few of us retain Vivid memories from the distant past anyway this could potentially be managed by other forms of nanotech which do not have to be limited to microscopic robots while enhanced storage and clearity would be advantageous they're not critical for achieving longevity the ability to alter detect and repair DNA is often seen as the holy grail for Nanobots as it would enable us to tackle aging ad its roots however achieving this at a microscopic scale presents significant challenges particularly in terms of visualization scanning for damage sequences is already a complex task imagining a tiny robot with arms and a flashlight working along a DNA strand might look compelling in altwork but in reality it's impractical as I mentioned resolving an object requires a wavelength smaller than the object itself the defraction limit is constrained by the wavelength divided by twice the numerical aperture of the Imaging system for Simplicity we can approximate this as wavelength / two since the shortest visible wavelength is around 400 nanom visible microscopes can only resolve down to 200 N mm about 100 times the diameter of DNA strand part of why their Discovery is still in living memory clearly visible light won't work here our nanobot doesn't need a human like eye and you can't make an eye or camera smaller than the wavelength it's meant to detect the obvious solution is to build a system with a shorter wavelength say 2 nanom to achieve a resolution down to a single nanometer however shorter wavelengths come with their own problems wavelength and Photon energy are inversely related the shorter the wavelength the higher the energy carried by each Photon and the smaller the area it impacts in the quantum realm this is very different from our everyday experiences if visible light is like a piece of paper drifting to land on a Lego sculpture a 2 nanom wavelength is more akin to a bullet more energetic and hitting with far more concentrated Force once you get into the range of 10 electron volts EV corresponding to wavelengths of 124 nanom or shorter you've entered the domain of ionizing radiation this range is about 1/3 more compact than the shortest visible blue and violet light and about three times more energetic ionizing radiation is highly damaging to complex molecular structures affecting not just organic materials but also robots and computer chips these can be severely degraded by it requiring a fairly thick shield made of dense material for protection an approach that is Impractical for tiny machines this means you can't simply scan around with a flashlight or laser of this kind without causing damage and shorter wavelengths leads to even more destruction a nanobot equipped with a 2 nanom wavelength light would not be emitting visible light which ranges up to 400 Nom weav UVA 315 to 400 nanm UV B 280 to 315 nanom or UVC 100 to 280 nanom while UVC is blocked by our ozone layer and is known for its germicidal and sterilizing properties 2 nanom wavelengths are much shorter still this wavelength does even fall within the extreme UV range 10 to 100 nanom which is used in semiconductor lithography to etge Tiny circuits as if with a knife or blowtorch instead two n is actually in the X-ray range specifically the soft x-ray range which spans from about 100 pomos to 10 nanom for reference hard x-rays range from about 1 Pomer up to 100 pom this adds another layer of complexity it's the idea of a tiny robot repairing DNA strands of its own size making direct DNA repair impractical vaporizing DNA on the other hand is quite feasible you might might wonder how this could be beneficial especially since it's unclear whether the potentially damaged DNA is good or bad however there are two ways that DNA repair could still work in this context first the robot doesn't need to read the DNA to determine if it's faulty DNA acts as a blueprint and it's clear there's an issue of it's producing damaged cells for perspective cells are microscopic entities composed of trillions of atoms if atoms are like the bricks that build a cell the cell is as large as a city and DNA is a complex skyscraper within that City you don't need to examine every brick to identify structural damage or to pinpoint and remove the problematic DNA structure this approach is extremely advantageous as DNA replication is nearly error free by targeting and eliminating dangerous mutations such as cancerous cells you could significantly increase human lifespan or slow aging by orders of magnitude incidentally we can't even engineer self-replicating organisms to reduce replication errors and become virtually mutation free but more on that later tiny robots are just one aspect of nanotechnology and there are other ways to repair a cell such as by inserting a DNA strand that is error free but where do we get that error free DNA fortunately we can print DNA and the process is relatively straight forward picture a carpet Nano tube a simple structure of graphine folded into a cylinder that's as wide as a DNA strand around 2 nanometers or 2,000 Pomers with carbon bonds and graphine measuring 142 Pomers this Nano tube resembles a mesh or chicken wire as wide as your arm and potentially as long as needed to create a piece of DNA whether it's an entire strand a single chromosome or even individual genes that can't be linked together as they form DNA can even be printed directly within a cell and we already have the technology to do this a similar or smaller scale we also have existing organisms like viruses that can hack into cells and hijack production to use as a basis for conceptual example imagine five Nanobots labeled a t c g and X they Converge on a damage cell much larger than they are while dragging a nano tube behind them X creates a tiny opening in the cell membrane acting like a syringe needle and pulls the nanot tube through this opening X then locates the damaged DNA and vaporizes it while the other four Nanobots start delivering nucleotides through the nanot tube A T C and G or adenine thyine cytosine and guanine these nucleotides are fed into the nanot tube in the precise order required to build a new DNA strand following the correct blueprint each nanobot has its own reservoir of the acquired nucleotides and release them at the correct time into the Nano tube I should also note that precision timing and positioning is also a hard problem in nanotech but let's bypass that for now as the DNA strand takes shape X guides the newly synthesized DNA to the Target location inside the cell carbon nanot tubes are extremely useful in nanot technology and could likely be a primary building material for many Nanobots however Nanobots don't need to build everything themselves we could have larger microscopic graphine or Nano tube factories that manufacture components or even entire Nanobots while the idea of a universal assembler modeled after self-replicating cells is Central to early nanotechnology Concepts there isn't necessarily a need for self-replicating robots indeed I'd argue they offer less value than some Alternatives while adding real risk instead a larger microscopic Factory could produce them potentially made by small smaller factories or even dumb Nanobots that follow the instructions of a smarter and larger machine elsewhere whether in the body the house or even off site there are certainly other ways to build DNA quickly or to enter cells we know that viruses can penetrate cells and the DNA replication in nature takes only a few hours while modern DNA printing can take hours to weeks we could improve on this but more importantly we don't need to make it perfect by occasionally providing a few cells with entirely new DNA printed from a Flawless digital template we can ensure that the body's natural processes use clean DNA while Nanobots eliminate mutated cells or old cells if you are seeking to replace them with totally new DNA like if you were switching out the gene for hair or eye color of course there's always the concern of Rogue Nanobots mutant machines rather than mutant cells nature often inspires our design but does not provide Rich blueprints we worry about scenarios like gray goo because we picture viruses or cells replicating uncontrollably however we need not worry as much about a simple microfactory running a muck if it's only capable of making specific types of bots and none that build maintain or Supply itself we can also borrow from how nature limits cell growth in us already nature provides us with diverse ecosystems where various organisms overlap comp compete and prey on each other in a nanotech ecosystem you'd have very Diversified systems working together to enhance each other some Bots might act as Scouts searching for problems like damaged GNA or tiny cracks in an engine wall or a house others could be resource gatherers collecting materials from PODS of encapsulated building supplies towed to the site or ingested by a person some Bots might handle recycling or removing damaged materials there might also be specialized scanners coordinating with others to produce realtime 3D maps compiled by a nearby microbot task with maintaining positioning for all the Bots you might even have Bots whose only job was to be a positional Beacon for others to work off of another bot could serve as a fuel Depot supplying energy in the form of simple sugars starches or even Advanced sources like carbon 14 Diamond batteries larger Bots might use wireless power but with microwaves as our preferred energy transmission method however since microwaves are micro by definition they are not suitable for powering Nano siiz devices you might have a microwave powered Sugar Factory that the smaller Bots came to for fuel or where specialized Bots went to pick up fuel to deliver to other bots in this ecosystem large your Bots aren't necessarily smarter or at the top of the hierarchy each bot is designed to perform a specific task and typically just that one task in traditional nanotechnology a universal assembler can theoretically do anything and replicate itself but we don't necessarily need that such a concept might not be safe or efficient if you want nanobot to operate far from Human oversight you need something with significant intelligence and self-replication abilities the intelligence issue is the same with any AI size does not matter and you shouldn't build anything smaller than it needs for its job however constant human oversight may not be required and self-replication can be achieved through a chain of bots where each produces smaller Bots at the top you might have a dozen larger Bots requiring agreement from Le 10 of them to construct a new sibling ensuring that a mutation in one or even two would not result in a defective copy we've explored this concept in more detail in episodes focused on self-replicating machines and space probes of which Nanobots are a subset as we've seen Nanobots do not actually need to be self-replicating at all the concept of a single Universal assemblr that can reproduce itself and handle all functions isn't practical with billions of them in a single human or similar sized organism or device it is more sensible to have thousands of specialized nanobot designs each tailord to a specific role you wouldn't use a screwdriver for every task nor attempt to build another screwdriver with a screwdriver we need a wide array of specialized tools and even the larger microscopic ones those that might not fit inside cells but still cellular sized can be delivered in a pill or syringe Nanobots would likely vary significantly in size and function with some being relatively large this ecosystem could also include connections to macroscopic computers like your smartphone and even extends to the internet on the smaller side it's not just about miniaturizing tools like knives or pliers these are straightforward to produce at the nomal scale where graphine sheets are incredibly sharp proportion systems might mimic flatula like whips or tentacles serving dual purposes as both movement and manipulation tools without needing to be much larger building nanobot requires much more than just miniaturizing tools though they need a source of motive force and energy Supply and either enough intelligence to function independently or a transmitter for remote control by a larger more advanced design we've already created Nano scale electric wires in the lab as we mentioned in our space elevator episode last month graphine is an excellent conductor as relative hexagonal boron nitride is a superb insulator a graphine nanot tube in case a boron nitride nanot tube could serve as an ideal electrical or Communication cable linking larger Nanobots or mic robots to smaller robots that may act primarily as scalpers or pliers while nanoscale structures aren't typically known for their durability they need only be as sturdy as biological structures to be effective Metals could be viable Alternatives if graphine and similar materials don't develop as expected although graphine properties are likely to revolutionize nanotechnology in considering the mechanics of Nanobots it is useful to look at the six classic simple machines which form the foundation of more complex or compound machines these are the lever wheel and axle pulley incline plane wedge and screw there's some debate on whether this list even needs to be that extensive since a pulley is essentially a type of wheel for pulley to function you also need a rope not just a wheel and axle as we discussed earlier regarding nanoscale wires we are capable of constructing nanoscale ropes as well time and experience with a termin how thick an incline plane wedge or lever needs to be to perform its job which depends on the task and the materials used these can be built at the small end of the Nano scale just a few atoms thick we are already constructing circuits at this scale though commercial production typically lags behind laboratory capabilities practical engineering and Manufacturing May impose larger size limits than what is possible in the lab for example a screw a twisted incline plane needs to be slightly larger as with wheels and gears but constructing relatively simple Mechanical Devices like those used before microengineering took off in recent decades should be feasible at tens of nanometers in scale some may be even smaller While others might need to be a bit bigger overall there's little stopping us from building at the scale which reaches down to the viral scale and potentially much smaller while won't be an easy Journey progress is rapid and experts in this field are generally optimistic at least until we reach the sticky finger scale nanotechnology is advancing and we already have some forms of it today consider it like AI a decade ago people spoke of AI as if it was science fiction though basic forms were already in use two decades ago many thought AI was either impossible or would immediately lead to a technological singularity today AI is a lot more mundane but undeniably present I'd say nanotechnology is similar probably about a decade behind AI the idea of tiny Nanobots eliminating aging or repairing neurons damaged by life or cryopreservation may still be a long way off but instead of viewing them as magical Solutions think of Nanobots as Tools in a toolbox designed to address problems under our control and guidance going Beyond in the the true picotech scale and even the fotech scale enters the Realms of what we might consider magic or more specifically what we call clock Tech in homage to Arthur C clar's famous Third Law any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable for magic constructing machines beneath the quantum scale where objects don't even have fixed positions but instead exist as probability distributions across space seems like an impossible task and I think it probably is but but we cannot rule out the possibility of pulling off tricks that defy our current understanding like miniaturizing people as seen in classic science fiction like Fantastic Voyage we might one day manipulate or even forward space time in such a way that like Doctor Who's Tardis an entire macroscopic Factory could be compacted into a subatomic pocket Dimension with a single entrance just a proton or electron wide from which it could emerge to manipulate objects much as the microscopic realm is underlain by the nanoscopic and below that the piccopay and the femtoscopic nuclear layer there may be even deeper layers of reality that are more deterministic potentially allowing for Machinery the quantum mechanics would deem impossible we'll explore one such possibility later this week as we dove into string theory and attempt to simplify and unravel its complexities for now the nanoscopic level is the limit but it's an incredibly valuable limit it holds the potential to solve all medical problems offering unbounded life expectancy in perfect health nanotechnology could enable us to repair rather than replace our machines fixing them with unparalleled efficiency upgrading rather than discarding them and building them even better as Tiny workers access microscopic nooks and crannies that were previously unreachable this technology not only supports existing organisms like us and our pets but by enhancing helal and performance but also extends that capability to maintaining our inorganic creations and enabling the construction of new ones that microscopic tools simply could not achieve indeed nanotechnology could be called the future of everything not just because of all the new doors it opens but because it will be incorporated into nearly everything and quite possibly everybody [Music]

2025-01-14 14:03

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