Difference between revisions of "Intuitive feel"

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This is an introduction to the character of robotic work in the nanocosm. <br>
 
This is an introduction to the character of robotic work in the nanocosm. <br>
 
It should deliver some intuitive feeling of how things work down there.
 
It should deliver some intuitive feeling of how things work down there.
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[[File:Atom hair soccer en 3.png|thumb|480px|Pluck yourself a Hair and look at it. Imagine a magnified model of the torn of end was built. Would be interesting – wouldn't it? This model was buried halfway such that it runs vertically into ground at the sidelines and that it reaches twenty-five meters of dome-height at the center of the play-field. When you stand on this soccer field in front of the fractured surface and you hold a real  hair against tremendous model then you see: The model-atoms of the giant hair have the diameter of a real hair.]]
 
  
 
__TOC__
 
__TOC__
  
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= How big is an atom? =
+
= Atoms =
  
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Atoms are quite small but they are not as ridiculously small as people usually say.
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* How big is an atom?
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If a hair (0.1mm) would be the width of a soccer field (~60m) an atom would be roughly the size of a hair.
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"Atoms are unimaginably small." that is very a common belief. And whenever some comparison is brought up one usually feels confirmed on hat assumption.  
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Carbon is about 0.2nm or 2Å in size that makes roughly five atoms per nanometer.
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But it turns out that there is a "best way" to get an intuitive feel for their size that is rarely used <small>(or never until here for the first time??)</small>. Here are the details: "[[Magnification theme-park]]". – Judge for yourself whether this "atoms are unimaginably small" belief is false misbelief after all.
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When hierarchically building up building structures one can quickly fill up this size gap.
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<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%px">
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* '''How does it feel when you grab two atoms and rub them against each other?''' <br> Atoms are very soft and slippery. <br>Main article: "[[The feel of atoms]]"
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Just for comparison astronomical size relations: <div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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* '''How do atoms work and what shape do they have?''' <br> They work like vibrating drums, just different in all the details. <br>Their shape is like symmetric smooth clouds, a bit like blurred fruit seeds. Shape can change when neighbor atoms change. <br>Main article: "[[The basics of atoms]]"
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Relative distances in the other (astronomic) direction are vastly greater.
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* '''At which speeds do Atoms usually move?''' <br>Too fast to find an intuitive way to imagine it. Sorry. <br> The Speed of sound <small>(experienced half a million times faster if you scale up to barely see the model-atoms)</small>. <br><small>But an intuitive feeling for speeds will be attainable for motion of bigger stuff that is of more interest (namely [[crystolecule]]s)</small>. <br>Main article: "[[The speed of atoms]]"
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If the planetary orbit of our outermost planet Neptune (which can technically be reached in years) where the size of a hair the nearest stars would lie beyond ~1km and the Milky Way would be ~1000km thick at our location. The next galaxies would start at the diameter of our sun ~1000000km then still follows the unimaginable size of intergalactic voids, the observable universe and the universe extrapolated to our "now" of which we now little by now.
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</div>
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</div>
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= How does it feel when you grab two atoms and rub them against each other? =
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= Speeds =
  
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[[File:Novint_Falcon.jpg|thumb|right|Force feedback devices like this one allow one to gain a very intimate understanding of how things behave at the scale of atoms.]]
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* '''At which speeds do Atoms usually move?''' <br> See answer above in section ''Atoms''. <br>Main article: "[[The speed of atoms]]"
 +
* '''At which speeds will nanorobotics usually operate?''' <br>Pretty slow actually. In the low mm/s range. <br> <small>(experienced pretty fast if you scale up to barely see the model-atoms. About mach 7)</small> <br>Main article: "[[The speed of nanorobotics]]"
  
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First I should note that trying this out for real is actually possible for quite a while now (as unbelievable as it may sound).
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= Everything is "magnetic" =
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To feel atoms you grab the end of a robot (you shake hands with it). A tiny needle with a single atom at the tip is then made to move exactly like your hand just on a lot smaller scale. When the topmost atom on the needle tip starts to touch an atom on a surface the robot arm pushes back just as the surface pushes back on the needle albeit with a magnified force big enough for you to conveniently feel it. This is called force feedback (commonly known from car racing games).
+
  
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Two analogies that might convey what it feels like best are:
+
Well, it's not really magnetism, but magnetism seems to be the best macroscale analogy for getting across a basic intuitive feeling. 
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* rubbing soft slippery fish or water soaked gummy bears against each other
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When going down to the nanoscale one encounters a new force that is omnipresent always and everywhere. The [[Van der Waals force]] (VdW).
−
* moving two magnets past each other in repulsive (but sometimes also attractive) configuration
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It feels as if everything where magnetic. Everything and anything loose will stick to everything else that it comes too close to.<br>
  
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Moving the robot arm in and outward you can check out softness and moving sideward you can check out slipperiness.
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* Similar to the magnetic force we are used to in everyday macroscale life, the VdW force drops off very quickly with distance / is rather short in range. <br>More short range even than magnetism - {{todo|verify quantitatively - low importance}}
 +
* Unlike a magnetic force the VdW force has no polarity. Is always attractive. Well, when things come close enough there's repulsion from [[nonbonded interactions]].<br> (Also related are some means for [[levitation]]).
  
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== Slipperiness ==
+
The VdW force is extremely useful for putting and holding stuff together at the nanoscale (and maybe microscale). Temporarily during (dis)assembly or permanently in final products. <br>
 +
Even small amounts of contact area can make a bond that is strong enough such that the relentless eternal jostling of [[thermal motion]] [[for all practical purposes]] never suffices to kick loose even one of many [[mol]]s of parts. For more details see: [[Connection method#Van der Waals locking]].
  
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Atoms are ridiculously slippery. Like the moon orbiting the earth there's basically no friction.
+
Of course from the actual physical origins (and the quantitative effects) the magnetic force and the VdW force are very much different.
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If certain conditions are met this low friction can be retained for larger contact areas than just the single atom on the tip of our probing needle.  
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So instead of everything is "magnetic" it would be better to say that everything is "vanderwaalic".
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One condition is that the atomic ripples on a touching pair of larger surfaces must not interlock like matching egg-crates. If this and a few other things are met there is extremely low friction. It is called the [[superlubrication]] phenomenon and it has enormous potential for technical usage in slide bearings of all kinds.
+
  
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== Softness ==
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Side-note: <br>
 +
Instead of using the magnetic force as commonly known macroscale analogy an alternative macroscale analogy would be ''everything is "sticky"''.
 +
This alternate analogy is not used here mainly because:
 +
* stickiness is usually associated with some sort of glue and thus with high viscosity which absolutely does not match reality even as a superficial analogy. Magnetism on the other hand is not associated to any medium and is associated with extremely low friction.
 +
* Magnetism (just as the VdW force) noticeably increases in strength when closing in. Glue does not really behave that way.
  
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So how does it feel to break a single bond between two atoms?
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= Everything is extremely bouncy =
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Since I can't let you pull on this robot arm over the web lets turn the robot arm facing downwards and tie an empty plastic bottle onto it in which we will later fill some water. We can also use a simple coil spring instead of the robot arm giving force feedback
+
  
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For realism we can make the robot arm behave exactly as stiff as the bond between two atoms.
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Drop some macroscale machine part like e.g. a metal gear down at a metal surface and it quickly comes to rest.
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Caution! Please do not mistake stiffness with force. Stiffness is how much the force grows per the length you pull.
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Not so much at the nanoscale. [[Crystolecules]] behave more like rubber balls, just worse. Way worse.  
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A bond between two atoms obviously has only a tiny force but this force builds up on a tiny distance.
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Rubber balls that just do not want to stop bouncing.
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Thus while the robot arm needs to magnify both force and length the stiffness of the bond turns out to be in the right size such that the robot arm can simulate it 1:1.
+
  
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Now here's a quiz: Assuming you fill half a liter of water into the plastic bottle how much will the robot arm simulating the stiffness of a bond between two carbon atoms in diamond give (very roughly)<br> A:~1mm ☐ B:~1cm ☐ C:~1dm ☐
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<small>Side-note: In some situations (like e.g. a flat disk hitting a flat wall) nanoscale gemstone "bouncyness" can become involved into a serious fight with nanoscale gemstone "vanderwalicness". Working out who wins (bounce-back or snap-to) is a serious mathematical/physical modeling challenge. Experiments are needed, but many of those can't be done yet.</small>
  
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<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="width:100%px">
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That bounciness is not only present when you smash a [[crystolecule]] against a wall, but also (which is more relevant) in the operation of gemstone based nanomachinery. Flex waves can run back and forth, barely damped, long ways through complex and even branched axle systems.
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Hidden solution:
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<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
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* A bond between two carbon atoms in (C-C bond) in diamond has a (maximum) spring constant of: k = 440N/m =~ 450g/cm. <br>Thus half a liter of water which makes 500g bends the setup ~1cm so the answer is B:~1cm ☒. That feels pretty soft to the hand.
+
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* halving the size -> halves the stiffness ... this is an instance of a [[scaling law]] of whom you'll here a lot here
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* Just remember: '''The smaller things are the floppier they become.''' Even diamond one of the strongest materials in existence feels pretty soft at the scale of single atomic bonds.
+
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</div>
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</div>
+
  
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= How do atoms work? =
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While designing for this can be major PITA (ahem pretty difficult) like in electrical circuit design,
 +
it also potentially offers the possibility to archive extreme high efficiencies.
  
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The common symbolic depiction of atoms with orbits and little balls for electrons protons and neutrons is awfully bad and very far from the real situation.
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Also one can gain more control via deliberate introduction of discrete damping elements.
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A decent intuitive picture for atoms are soft/blurry clouds that are as smooth as possible and can exert soft forces on other of these clouds in case they come close. There are no hard surfaces.
+
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These clouds are made of so called "electron density". Atoms basically are electrons.
+
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The electrons in atoms (especially the outermost ones) not just have the size of atoms they literally are the atoms.
+
  
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Side note 1: Electrons in solids of can be bigger than atoms like e.g. free electrons in metals.<br>
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= Everything is shaky =
−
Side note 2: Electrons in atoms (of internal origin) can not be smaller than the innermost electron shell. Otherwise they would be so called "virtual fluctuations" of electrons (not virtual particles). If electrons in atoms would really be smaller than the innermost electron shell they would need to have so much impulse and kinetic energy that they would leave the atom promptly. (Technical details: Impulse too is a blurry cloud. High impulse here means a broad cloud in "impulse space". The seesaw that makes tightly constrained electrons move more vigorously is called the "Heisenberg uncertainty relationship")
+
  
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The very small core/nucleus of the atom (which btw is also cloudy but more rowdy - excuse the joke) just serves as a very well hidden glue holding the electron cloud together. The inner electrons serve as padding. They shift some electrons further outward (due to the Pauli exclusion principle) making them the outer electrons. Only this way the clouds outermost exposed electrons undergo interesting changes that make chemical bonds possible.
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Worse than in a wood wheeled carriage racing over cobblestones.<br>
 +
'''Or: You are like an astronaut – don't ever let go of your tools – they may haunt you'''
  
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What kind of interesting changes?
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* What happens when you let go of a building block?
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As a first crude starting analogy imagine the electron density (actually a precursor of it) as the skin on a drum.
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The lowest tone you can play makes the whole membrane go up and down (a single antinode of vibration).
+
  
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There are several points where the useful drum analogy breaks and some awkward peculiarities show up:
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Main article: "[[The heat-overpowers-gravity size-scale]]"
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* The membrane as no border – (again: there are no sharp surfaces).
+
−
* The tension of the membrane changes towards the center.
+
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* The membrane is not two dimensional but three dimensional and it does not swing up and down but into a further dimension that is the precursor of electron density. This precursor can be best expressed with complex numbers and is called the "wave function" of the electron.
+
−
* Every tone can be played at exactly one volume.
+
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* Every tone can be played exactly twice (spin up and spin down) then if one wants to play more tones one needs to go on to the tone next higher in frequency/pitch. (This is due to the Pauli exclusion principle.)
+
−
* Tones do not radiate away energy. They stay at their frequency pitch permanently unless actively driven away. Electrons don't "fall" into the core due to the seesaw that makes electrons move more vigorously when they become tightly constrained in space. The "heisenberg uncertainty relationship".
+
  
−
Exactly two electrons go into the first tone (the two spins - spin up and spin down - then this place is full - Pauli exclusion).
+
Let's consider an somewhat unusual fall experiment. A small gripper let go of a building block. Simple? See if you answer right.
−
The next higher tone of the drum (aka the first overtone) has the inner circular area of the drum going up-then-down and the outer circular ring-area going down-then-up.
+
−
A motionless circular nodal line of vibration is located between the two antinodes of vibration on the 2D drum model. In the real 3D atom this is a infinitely sharp spherical shell.
+
  
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Technical side-notes: The number of nodes directly corresponds to the strain and energy in the "drum membrane" with every additional node one is raising up one energy level. These energy levels are characterized by the "main/principal quantum number" with symbol "n". Numbers of n have associated letters (1=k 2=l 3=m ...).
+
Related: [[spiky needle grabbing]]
  
−
= What kind of shape do atoms have? =
+
[[File:Fall-experiment-quiz-en.svg|thumb|center|480px|A fall experiment quiz to illustrate the quite unfamiliar mechanical behavior in the nanoscale.]]
  
−
TODO ....
+
= Scaling laws =
  
−
= Speeds of motion in nanorobotics =
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They describe what changes when one goes down the scale.
 +
E.g. that magnetic motors become weak but electrostatic ones strong.
 +
More details can be found at the [[scaling laws|scaling laws main page]].
  
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Today it's general education that temperature is equivalent to the speed of motion of particles at the atomic scale.
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= The prospective feel of gem-gum products =
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If you unfamiliar with this "thermal motion" also known as "brownian motion" I suggest you read up on this elsewhere (e.g. wikipedia) before continuing here.
+
  
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== The incredible rate things zap past their surroundings (just driven by temperature) ==
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Gem-gum products though machine like robotic in the nanocosm are not necessarily cold hard and robot like to the human senses (See: [[Soft-core macrorobots with hard-core nanomachinery]]).
 +
[[Emulated elasticity]] can create any form imaginable with gradients from soft to hard.
 +
It isn't an easy to attain property but it is an highly desirable one and will emerge at some point.
  
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Thermal motion at the nanoscale is pretty incredible. <br>
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= Related =
−
Small single molecules zip around at thermal speeds of a few hundred meters per second. That's about the speed of sound. When we scale up size by our [[conceivable magnification factor|usual magnification factor of 500.000]] to make model atoms (say water molecules) have the diameter of a human hair and when we keep the flow of time unchanged then those hair sized molecules zip around with more than half the speed of light.
+
  
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But since those water molecules are densely packed they do not move in long straight lines.
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Provide means for an intuitive understanding seems to be
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* In liquid phase (e.g. water) they move in twisty paths with curve radii of about their own size.
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a good [[didactic approach]] for a wide [[target audience]].  
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* In one atmosphere gas phase (e.g. air) they move about 250 times their size (the mean free path length) before colliding and making a more or less U turn. In the 500,000 times scaled up model those U-turns are executed at near the speed of light every 2.5 centimeters (250 x 0.1mm).
+
  
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Note that molecules in a liquid or gas that are not bond to a crystal run apart quantum-blurrily quite quickly (more on that later).
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== In the book "Radical Abundance" ==
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So a "soup" of a superposition of all possible collision-histories is a better picture for fluids and gasses.
+
  
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== Assembly by mindlessly throwing parts together at ridiculous rates ==
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In the book [[Radical Abundance]] the introduction tries to convey an intuitive feel for how things behave down at the nanoscale.
 +
{{wikitodo|give a more precise reference}}
  
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Given this situation it becomes very obvious that in a liquid environment that is densely packed with other solvent molecules (e.g. water) solvated molecules meet a lot of other solvated molecules in a very short amount of time.
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== Richard Feynman ==
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Bigger more massive molecules like proteins ("puzzle piece molecules") move slower but collision rates are still very very high.
+
  
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This is why puzzle piece shaped proteins molecules in biological systems can "assemble themselves" into their intended products. Via their random collisions they just mindlessly try all possible places they could bond to in very very fast succession. It's mindless trying like having toddlers that do not yet grasp that cubes do not fit through round holes do the assembly job but since it's done so fast (like brute force computer algorithms) useful things can be assembled nonetheless.
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There are great recordings of the famous physicist and teacher Richard Feynmen about the importance:
 +
* of an intuitive understanding of things and
 +
* of looking at things from new perspectives.
  
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The technical term for this method of assembly is "self assembly" but here we'll call it "[[thermally driven assembly]]" which captures the meaning better. On the day to day macroscale this method of assembly is usually not applied for practical purposes due to its ridiculous slowness and requirement of parts fitting together like a sticky puzzle. Fully grasping the process how it happens at the nanoscale at an intuitive level may be impossible due to the vast number of trials until the final successful bonding reaction. {{todo|investigate better visualization methods}}
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Main article: [[Richard Feynman]]
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There are beautiful CG videos of molecular biology that use fake motions mo make it comprehensible {{todo|add link}}.
+
  
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== Use of thermally driven assembly to get away from thermally driven assembly ASAP ==
+
== Related ==
  
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[[Thermally driven assembly]] is the predominant form of assembly in biological systems.
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=== Getting a good intuition about atoms ===
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[[Thermally driven assembly]] of increasingly arfificial molecules will be (and already is!!) a very useful tool for walking the initial steps of the path to advanced nanofactories.
+
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But as it turns out in an advanced nanofactory (the far term goal) it makes much more sense to actually constrain / suppress thermal vibrations and take care of the transport oneself in a fully controlled and less mindless fashion.
+
  
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The idea of working towards a point where we deny the help of thermal motion (shunning the teachings of nature) but doing assembly tightly controlled and guided instead has received harsh criticism in the past. It was and still is often misunderstood as a misunderstading of the real nature of the nanocosm.
+
* [[Intuitively understanding the size of an atom]]
 +
* [[The feel of atoms]]
 +
* [[The basics of atoms]]
 +
* [[The speed of atoms]] – [[The speed of nanorobotiocs]] and ...
 +
* ... how the two are usually far apart: [[Stroboscopic illusion in crystolecule animations]]
 +
* [[Periodic table of elements]] as the ultimate construction toy
 +
* [[Limits of construction kit analogy]]
  
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But there actually is '''an example where we already succeeded with the suppression of thermal noise.
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For an intuitive understanding how energies, forces, and stiffness <br>
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Nanoelectronics.''' In microchips we've already learned to suppress thermally caused electrical noise without even noticing it since it just gradually got more difficult.
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at the nanoscale compare to each other see: [[Energy, force, and stiffness]]
  
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The two necessary requirements for thermal noise suppression are the same that we used to get away from analog technology namely:
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=== Getting a good intuition about thermal motions ===
  
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* error margins and
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* [[The heat-overpowers-gravity size-scale]]
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* error correction
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* [[thermally skittering building blocks]]
 +
* [[thermally jumping building blocks]] – practically likely not happening except designed for – [[spiky needle grabbing]]
  
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Now we use mostly digital electronics.
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=== Averting false intuitions – things that may come unexpected ===
  
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Given that electrons start to behave strongly quantum-mechanically in the nanoscale
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* Why [[nanomechanics is barely mechanical quantummechanics]]
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(quantum blurriness and thermal motion can often be treated in a common fashion) -- which stands is [[Nanomechanics is barely mechanical quantummechanics|in stark contrast to nanomechanical nanomachines]] -- this is even more of a feat. We where not forced to switch some sort of probabilistic electronics (whatever that would be). Since much less quantum mechanical in behavior advanced nanomechanical systems will have even less reason to work in a purely probabilistic fashion.
+
* [[Soft-core macrorobots with hard-core nanomachinery]]
 +
* The [[unsupported rotating ring speed limit]]
 +
* [[Scaling law]]s
  
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== The smaller the more productive ==
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=== Truely intuitively understanding the size scales involved ===
  
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Main article: "[[Higher productivity of smaller machinery]]"
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* [[Maginification theme park]]
 +
* [[Intuitively understanding the size of an atom]]
 +
* [[Distorted visualisation methods for convergent assembly]]
  
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While size goes down speed goes up.
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=== An intuition about the possible consequences of gemstone metamaterial technology ===
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A good example in nature is the increasing wing flapping rate seen in birds and insects.
+
  
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By naively scaling down a current day 3D-printer by a factor of 500.000 (just for illustration - not a serious proposal) it becomes 500.000 times faster.
+
* Understanding possible consequences of [[gem-gum technology]] via [[story scenarios]].
−
A typically time for 3D printers to print parts that have about the mass of the printer itself is on the order of 10 hours. This shrinks down to just 0.72 seconds.
+
  
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Now a single shrunk down printer won't produce much but imagine the whole volume of the original non-shrunk printer filled up with shrunk down printers. This would then produce the macroscale printers own mass in less than a second.
+
= External links =
  
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In a serious advanced nanofactory design the time to produce the production machinery's own mass can become
 
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even smaller due to better materials, lower friction, smaller size steps, to name a few reasons.
 
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'''For a good intuitive feel about the production rate imagine products shooting out like rifle bullets.'''
 
−
 
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I fact the time to produce production machinery's own mass can become so short that the products that can be produced at the nanoscale cannot be fed out fast enough at the [[macroscale]] anymore.
 
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Getting even remotely near there would require impractical levels of cooling.
 
−
 
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Solution: One humbly accepts not to get the full crazy level potential of nanoscale production machinery
 
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and is content with just more than practical levels of productivity.
 
−
 
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To do this one does not fill up the whole volume with productive nanosystems. One abandons the concept of clouds of [[molecular assembler]]s. Instead one integrates everything in a thin chip. A nanofactory.
 
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For details check the main article: [[Macroscale slowness bottleneck]]
 
−
 
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Even in the case when one really wants to push the limits (there's likely military interest here) its likely that a highly advanced fractal nanofactory that is a little thicker is the best solution.
 
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For a continuously running device the cooling facilities then are likely much bigger than the productive device itself. The production becomes highly inefficient and turns a lot of energy into heat.
 
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Still there is the [[fundamental specific acceleration limit]] which cannot be exceeded.
 
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This is the point where no known material would not break from the acceleration loads.
 
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== Motions in the far term goal of advanced nanofactories ==
 
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Assembly in an advanced [[nanofactory]] will resemble more of a factory assembly line far away from any similarity to biological systems. All the machinery will usually run much slower than the thermal motions (about at least a factor of 1000) but since every try is a hit (for all practical purposes) the production throughput can be the same or higher than the one of natural bio-systems that work with [[thermally driven assembly]].
 
−
 
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In rare occasions one might want to let go of molecules or [[crystolecule]]s in an advanced nanosystem.
 
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Thermal motion for bigger [[crystolecule]]s in a vacuum under gravity are statistically distributed throwing parabolas.
 
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Single molecules show significant quantum blurring when released.
 
−
 
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* [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Huellkurve_wurfparabel.svg Envelope of throwing trajectories with same speed]
 
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* [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inclinedthrow.gif Throwing trajectories with various speed in same direction]
 
−
 
−
= What happens when you let go of a building block? =
 
−
 
−
Let's consider an somewhat unusual fall experiment. A small gripper let go of a building block. Simple? See if you answer right.
 
−
 
−
[[File:Fall-experiment-quiz-en.svg|thumb|center|480px|A fall experiment quiz to illustrate the quite unfamiliar mechanical behavior in the nanoscale.]]
 
−
 
−
= Scaling laws =
 
−
 
−
They describe what changes when one goes down the scale.
 
−
E.g. that magnetic motors become weak but electrostatic ones strong.
 
−
More details can be found at the [[scaling laws|scaling laws main page]].
 
−
 
−
= The feel of AP Products =
 
−
 
−
AP products though robotic and gemstone like in the nanocosm are not necessarily cold hard and robot like to the human senses.
 
−
[[Emulated elasticity]] can create any form imaginable with gradients from soft to hard. It isn't an easy to attain property but it is an highly desirable one and will emerge at some point.
 
−
 
−
= Bonding energies - Tensile strengths - Stiffnesses =
 
−
 
−
{{todo|Add the same info table as on VdW force page}} <br>
 
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['''Todo:''' Add table - make it visualizable for covalent bonds and VdW bonds] <br>
 
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['''Todo:''' show surface area thats VdW ashesion is energetically equivalent to one covalent bond - related: [[Form locking]]]
 
−
 
−
* [[Connection method#Van der Waals locking]]
 
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* [[Van der Waals force]]
 
−
 
−
= Further =
 
−
 
−
* [[Periodic table of elements]]
 
−
* acceleration limits
 
−
* jumping building blocks
 
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* Why [[nanomechanics is barely mechanical quantummechanics]]
 
 
* '''Video Playlist:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjGP0iXhsr8&list=PLG7lwFsqKHb8_24MArWWW9IgYQtieV8BR The Shape of Atoms and Bonds (By "Learn Hub")]
 
* '''Video Playlist:''' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjGP0iXhsr8&list=PLG7lwFsqKHb8_24MArWWW9IgYQtieV8BR The Shape of Atoms and Bonds (By "Learn Hub")]
−
* [[Distorted visualisation methods for convergent assembly]]
 
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* [[Scaling law]]s
 
  
 
[[Category:General]]
 
[[Category:General]]

Latest revision as of 13:15, 8 July 2021

This is an introduction to the character of robotic work in the nanocosm.
It should deliver some intuitive feeling of how things work down there.

Atoms

  • How big is an atom?

"Atoms are unimaginably small." that is very a common belief. And whenever some comparison is brought up one usually feels confirmed on hat assumption. But it turns out that there is a "best way" to get an intuitive feel for their size that is rarely used (or never until here for the first time??). Here are the details: "Magnification theme-park". – Judge for yourself whether this "atoms are unimaginably small" belief is false misbelief after all.

  • How does it feel when you grab two atoms and rub them against each other?
    Atoms are very soft and slippery.
    Main article: "The feel of atoms"
  • How do atoms work and what shape do they have?
    They work like vibrating drums, just different in all the details.
    Their shape is like symmetric smooth clouds, a bit like blurred fruit seeds. Shape can change when neighbor atoms change.
    Main article: "The basics of atoms"
  • At which speeds do Atoms usually move?
    Too fast to find an intuitive way to imagine it. Sorry.
    The Speed of sound (experienced half a million times faster if you scale up to barely see the model-atoms).
    But an intuitive feeling for speeds will be attainable for motion of bigger stuff that is of more interest (namely crystolecules).
    Main article: "The speed of atoms"

Speeds

  • At which speeds do Atoms usually move?
    See answer above in section Atoms.
    Main article: "The speed of atoms"
  • At which speeds will nanorobotics usually operate?
    Pretty slow actually. In the low mm/s range.
    (experienced pretty fast if you scale up to barely see the model-atoms. About mach 7)
    Main article: "The speed of nanorobotics"

Everything is "magnetic"

Well, it's not really magnetism, but magnetism seems to be the best macroscale analogy for getting across a basic intuitive feeling. When going down to the nanoscale one encounters a new force that is omnipresent always and everywhere. The Van der Waals force (VdW). It feels as if everything where magnetic. Everything and anything loose will stick to everything else that it comes too close to.

  • Similar to the magnetic force we are used to in everyday macroscale life, the VdW force drops off very quickly with distance / is rather short in range.
    More short range even than magnetism - (TODO: verify quantitatively - low importance)
  • Unlike a magnetic force the VdW force has no polarity. Is always attractive. Well, when things come close enough there's repulsion from nonbonded interactions.
    (Also related are some means for levitation).

The VdW force is extremely useful for putting and holding stuff together at the nanoscale (and maybe microscale). Temporarily during (dis)assembly or permanently in final products.
Even small amounts of contact area can make a bond that is strong enough such that the relentless eternal jostling of thermal motion for all practical purposes never suffices to kick loose even one of many mols of parts. For more details see: Connection method#Van der Waals locking.

Of course from the actual physical origins (and the quantitative effects) the magnetic force and the VdW force are very much different. So instead of everything is "magnetic" it would be better to say that everything is "vanderwaalic".

Side-note:
Instead of using the magnetic force as commonly known macroscale analogy an alternative macroscale analogy would be everything is "sticky". This alternate analogy is not used here mainly because:

  • stickiness is usually associated with some sort of glue and thus with high viscosity which absolutely does not match reality even as a superficial analogy. Magnetism on the other hand is not associated to any medium and is associated with extremely low friction.
  • Magnetism (just as the VdW force) noticeably increases in strength when closing in. Glue does not really behave that way.

Everything is extremely bouncy

Drop some macroscale machine part like e.g. a metal gear down at a metal surface and it quickly comes to rest. Not so much at the nanoscale. Crystolecules behave more like rubber balls, just worse. Way worse. Rubber balls that just do not want to stop bouncing.

Side-note: In some situations (like e.g. a flat disk hitting a flat wall) nanoscale gemstone "bouncyness" can become involved into a serious fight with nanoscale gemstone "vanderwalicness". Working out who wins (bounce-back or snap-to) is a serious mathematical/physical modeling challenge. Experiments are needed, but many of those can't be done yet.

That bounciness is not only present when you smash a crystolecule against a wall, but also (which is more relevant) in the operation of gemstone based nanomachinery. Flex waves can run back and forth, barely damped, long ways through complex and even branched axle systems.

While designing for this can be major PITA (ahem pretty difficult) like in electrical circuit design, it also potentially offers the possibility to archive extreme high efficiencies.

Also one can gain more control via deliberate introduction of discrete damping elements.

Everything is shaky

Worse than in a wood wheeled carriage racing over cobblestones.
Or: You are like an astronaut – don't ever let go of your tools – they may haunt you

  • What happens when you let go of a building block?

Main article: "The heat-overpowers-gravity size-scale"

Let's consider an somewhat unusual fall experiment. A small gripper let go of a building block. Simple? See if you answer right.

Related: spiky needle grabbing

A fall experiment quiz to illustrate the quite unfamiliar mechanical behavior in the nanoscale.

Scaling laws

They describe what changes when one goes down the scale. E.g. that magnetic motors become weak but electrostatic ones strong. More details can be found at the scaling laws main page.

The prospective feel of gem-gum products

Gem-gum products though machine like robotic in the nanocosm are not necessarily cold hard and robot like to the human senses (See: Soft-core macrorobots with hard-core nanomachinery). Emulated elasticity can create any form imaginable with gradients from soft to hard. It isn't an easy to attain property but it is an highly desirable one and will emerge at some point.

Related

Provide means for an intuitive understanding seems to be a good didactic approach for a wide target audience.

In the book "Radical Abundance"

In the book Radical Abundance the introduction tries to convey an intuitive feel for how things behave down at the nanoscale. (wiki-TODO: give a more precise reference)

Richard Feynman

There are great recordings of the famous physicist and teacher Richard Feynmen about the importance:

  • of an intuitive understanding of things and
  • of looking at things from new perspectives.

Main article: Richard Feynman

Related

Getting a good intuition about atoms

For an intuitive understanding how energies, forces, and stiffness
at the nanoscale compare to each other see: Energy, force, and stiffness

Getting a good intuition about thermal motions

Averting false intuitions – things that may come unexpected

Truely intuitively understanding the size scales involved

An intuition about the possible consequences of gemstone metamaterial technology

External links

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