Re: Telenanoactuaction: an interesting possibility...

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Mar 22 2000 - 08:31:48 MST


g_luxmast <g_luxmast@loja.net> writes:

> I was thinking if with the theories just known, there is any
> possibility of teleactuating in nanoscale. For example telemoving
> individual atoms ...

To my knowledge there are no such ways that work over macroscopic
distances.

The problem is that to hold an atom, you need some kind of field (most
likely an electromagnetic field) around it, and since they tend to
fall off with the square (or more) of the distance the range is rather
limited. Also, you would need to get information back from the atomic
cluster you are building, and that would require scattering signals
from it, which would in turn cause scattering from everything else in
the vicinity which would make it hard to detect anything over the
noise.

I guess a person with more knowledge of optics could give a stringent
answer. I have some loose idea that the very high-frequency fourier
modes required for atomic manipulation would diffract over long
distances, but this is merely the ramblings of an amateur...

> Please put your brains to work a little on it -> if there is
> any "light", it will be possible to "teleassemble" nanorobots on
> a distant planet for example which could explore such world and send
> us back the collected informations using electromagnetic c-speed waves...

It would certainly be nice, but I can't see any way of doing it.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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