Re: NANOTECH: IMHO

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Well, as soon as it is possible to overcome the strong nuclear and repulsion forces to actually modify an atom's atomic weight and its electrons, then any matter could be formed into any other matter. I don't fully understand the dynamics of transmuting elements.

This is similar to the idea of a nano-scale assembler, but perhaps a little smaller. It would be similar to an "alchemy" machine in that alchemy's famous goal is turning lead into gold, but otherwise has nothing to do with alchemy. Perhaps it could be called an "absolute assembler".

If that is not possible (it is not likely to be possible any time soon), a couple of bags of rust would do.

Silicon possesses very similar qualities to carbon in terms of electron stability, and it would be likely that, for example, buckyballs and nanotubes could be made from silicon, as well as higher level structures like diamondoid structural building materials.

Webb_S wrote:

> Just out of curiosity, how would one go about creating carbon steel,
> composed primarily of iron, out of sand composed primarily of silicon?
> Nanotech has many possibilities, but unless I've overlooked something
> alchemical transformation of elements isn't one of them.
>
> Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
>
> > I think one proof-of-concept machine that makes carbon steel structural
> I-> > beams out of sand on-site will be plenty to kickstart plenty of
> investment.

Ross F.

--
Ross Andrew Finlayson
202/387-8208
http://www.tomco.net/~raf/
"C is the speed of light."

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