From: Nicholas Bostrom (bostrom@mail.ndirect.co.uk)
Date: Wed Aug 27 1997 - 17:07:39 MDT
We need to answer the following questions:
Can a nanite colony produce a net energy output by eating
organic material/earth crust?
What is the best upper bound on the time it would take to digest a
given large volume of the substance?
We do not require that the end product is diamond, just that the
nanites can extract net energy from the material. My preliminary
guess is "Yes" to the first question (both wood and earth crust), and
"A very short time." to the second (because the time should be largly
independent on the volume, since the nanites can multiply and divide
the labor)
Carl Feynman wrote:
> At 03:07 PM 8/27/97 +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> >Could we get some numbers here? What is the average enthalpy of
> >organic stuff compared to diamond?
>
> I don't have the numbers handy, but I know the relative magnitudes. These
> bonds have about the same energy:
>
> C-C single bonds
> C-H single bonds
> O-O double bonds
> N-C single bonds
>
> These are much lower in energy:
>
> O-H single bonds
> C-O double bonds
> N-N triple bonds
>
------------------------------------------------
Nicholas Bostrom
bostrom@ndirect.co.uk
*Visit my transhumanist web site at*
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb
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