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Nanotechnology, is it the future?

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 05:41:45 2021 No.12692559 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>12692576 >>12692625 >>12693169

I am a retard who finished highschool with a pretty good score but didn't do shit for 5 years, 24 now and thinking on getting into nanotechnology engineering, and hopefully a masters in biomedical engineering.
Here's the thing, i've been looking into it a lot, and i can't help but wonder, why haven't we developed nanobots yet? We know how biochemistry makes bacteria work and how it seeks food, why are we not using this knowledge to make a small nanobot that mimics these processes?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 05:47:54 No.12692576 Report

Quoted By: >>12692625

>>12692559
>why are we not using this knowledge to make a small nanobot that mimics these processes?
Oh yes, as if we could devise a robot which could mimic billions of years of evolution in only 10 years. We could, but it likely wouldn't even be achievable in this millennia, let alone this century.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 06:01:27 No.12692625 Report

Quoted By:

>>12692576
>>12692559
>Small nanobot
I just realized how redundant this sounds.
Anyway, i guess what you say makes sense, i forget how new this technology is, then again we did put a man on the moon in the late 60s, so the idea of building nanobots that could mimic or imitate, even if not perfectly, should be something achievable within this century.
I mean, i don't think we have much of a choice anyway. We need a more efficient and cheap way to generate energy if we expect to be able to keep up with the ever increasing energy demand, and since our efforts in space exploration aren't progressing as much as we want, and our renewable energy sources aren't enough, the key should be on nanotechnology materials.
So whether we want it or not more research in this field will be conducted just like the research on the space was a must on the cold war.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 09:02:28 No.12693169 Report

Quoted By: >>12693173

>>12692559
What you are describing is about the highest level of molecular nanotechnology (so far the least developed and most challenging subfield of nanotechnology). Here's why:
1) Component design.
The components (molecules) required to build this would have to be tailor-made for a specific machine. It is most likely that these molecules would have to be rather complex – about ther order of complexity of proteins/rna/dna or something just a bit simpler (still huge and complicated by molecule standards). These molecules could be composed of a wide variety of chemical elements (in order to construct the best molecules to perform each function there should be minimal constraints of atom choice). The exact geometry of each molecule being considered (wou might consider tens or hundreds of molecules fore ach part) would have to be determined by using quantum chemistry computations (currently very slow and difficult process that requires large computational resources). Deep learning had some success here, but its accuracy here is limited here, despite being faster. Also some problems here are not fully solved (i.e. proteing folding – only a semi-accurate solution exists by deep learning – this accuracy might not be enough). Performing this task in any reasonable amount of time would require a huge supercomputer and many computational/quantum chemistry experts running computations and interpreting their results.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 09:03:45 No.12693173 Report

Quoted By: >>12693174

>>12693169
2) Component production.
Say you already have in mind the molecules you want for each specific part of your robot. Then you need to synthesize them. Synthesis of complicated molecules is a difficult task that typically requires many stages (when talking about conventional chemistry). Using genetically modified bacteria to make these molecules poses its own challenges, like coming up with the genetic code which would translate into the composition and structure of the molecule. Also, the end product would have to be very pure, because different isomers have different structures and properties, so cromatography will also have to be applied to the end product, and maybe to intermediate stages, because there is no known way to ensure only one isomer forms in a chemical reaction. Isomerism gives problems even to chemistry experts like big pharma. Actual production of molecules would likely pose and even greater challenge than choosing which molecules to synthesize. Performing this task in any reasonable amount of time would require a huge advanced chemistry lab (or more likely – several labs working in parallel) filled with high quality materials and employing many experienced chemists to do reactions, analyze products, etc.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 09:04:52 No.12693174 Report

Quoted By: >>12693176

>>12693173
3) Component assembly.
The assembly of such a molecular robot/machine would require self-assembly of many different molecules into a working machine. This can be done all at once (currently absolutely impossible) or in stages (currently very difficult). Determining interactions between molecules for self-assembly would require more quantum chemistry computations. Other methods like direct manipulation of molecules by AFM/STM is not feasible here, because it is only 2D manipulation (nanorobots would require 3D). Also optical tweezers are not feasible here because the molecules are too small. And even if you could physically assemble the molecules one-by-one, doing so would take an insane amount of time foro ne robot. Also, one robot is useless for doing any task – you require many nanorobots for that. So far only self-assembly can do it, and apparently humanity is not advanced enough to use it, because no-one has done self-assembly of complex molecular systems to date.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 09:06:03 No.12693176 Report

Quoted By:

>>12693174
4) Machine quality/stability
Even if all previous stages were done correctly, would these machines work? So far only way to be sure is in-situ TEM – a huge and expensive machine that requires a qualified person to maintain and run it. Naturally, it would have to be in a cleanroom (an expensive thins on its own). And even if they end up working – what is their stability (the parameter that determines their usability)? Need I remind you – they are held in place b yvan der waals forces only.
If:
>solvent temp increases by 1 deg – robot breaks from brownian motion
>solvent ph increases/decreases by0.1 – robot breaks because it desolves
>robot encounters a molecule/nanoparticle that it was not intended to work with – robot breaks
>light shines on solvent – robot breaks from photochemical reactions between its components of solvent
Then this robot is not applicable to anything less than ideal conditions and in general is useless.

So, to generalize:
Component design, component production and component assembly are all crazy complicated and difficult tasks which require a lot of highly qualified people of many different areas and insane financing. And the end result might end up being next to useless.
>t. nanotechnology phd student

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 09:09:37 No.12693183 Report

Quoted By: >>12693350

biological life effectively IS nanotechnology. Why build something from scratch when we already have all the equipment we need to build any type of nanomachine we want, if we only learned how to properly use it?
Once we understand all the mechanisms of life we will be able to create our own synthetic self-replicating organisms, tailor made for any possible use.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 11 Feb 2021 11:01:38 No.12693350 Report

Quoted By:

>>12693183
>biological life effectively IS nanotechnology
True, its just way too complex for us to understand. We scratched the surface, but there is still a long way to go.
>Why build something from scratch when we already have all the equipment we need to build any type of nanomachine we want
We do not have the know-how of using the equipment effectively - our current knowledge is surface level compared to all left to discover about life. Might as well be cavemen trying to fly and airplane. And also, we cant „build any type of nanomachine we want“ – even nature didnt as fas as we know. Take, for example, amino acids – all known life uses only 22 different acids, when there are literally thousands symthesized by scientists to this day. Those 22 obviously work to some extent, but what makes you think those 22 naturally occuring are the best at what they do? Maybe some other amino acid could make protein building more efficient, or make proteins which do things no other protein does? Evolution is a powerful force, but even it cant do everything, because it, like everything, has limits (for example, if reaching a peak in a fitness landscape, no matter how high, requires an organism to descend into a fitness valley, it will not happen, because fitness of living organisms gets evaluated every generation, and the less fit typically do not survive, even if their offspring could potentially become more fit).
>Once we understand all the mechanisms of life
This is literally going to happen in the next century at best if we dont fuck ourselves into extinction with climate change, something nuclear or biological (in fact, even fucking ourselves to pre-civilized level would be sufficient). The question of anon is regarding current capabilities. And the fact of the matter is that current capabilities are very limited for doing what is asked.
>t. nanotechnology phd student

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