StanfordNano asked:
The Stanford Nanoelectronics Group presents “Nanotechnology – Carbon Nanotube Electronics”, a short educaitonal video on nanotechnology and carbon nanotubes (this video made possible by the National Science Foundation).
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of research going on. While they may not be specific to nanotubes, they do pertain to nanotechnology. One example uses nanotechnology circuits and nano-materials to build a sensor to sense pH levels in biological systems.
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If nanobots were to exist one day, they would not likely “see” in the traditional meaning. That is, they will not have “eyes” that use visible light to see their surroundings. Instead, they will “see” via sensors that sense their environments, such as the pH level, or glucose level in blood…etc, or sense things in very close proximity, e.g. whether they are touching/attached to a red blood cell, white blood cell, or other cell types. In this regard (sensing as “seeing”), there is a lot
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-nanotubes are indeed light-weight given its strength
-nanotubes, mixed in with various materials, have been shown to improve the mechanical properties of those various materials
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Thank you for your opinion. While I will not speculate on this possibility, allow me to provide some related facts:
-nanotubes are one of the strongest materials known, if you normalize to it’s nano size (tensile strength is more than steel & diamonds)
-however, nanotubes in bulk, may or may not be super-strong, depending on how it is woven (or not) into a form of fiber
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Instead, an alternative may be to add something on the road and car tires which help them stick to each other, despite rain/snow. Or, to add something to the road which causes water to have a suppressed freezing point when it’s wetting the road. This will lead to less ice and black ice, which could help improve road conditions. However, all this is just a possibility, and may or may not materialize.
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which may help the body heal (though the nanotube itself does not do the healing directly).
3. This is an interesting idea and perhaps something along these lines can be investigated. While it there are already anti-stick nano coatings today (e.g. teflon in your pots/pans, specially treated windshields…), I do not think they will be used on roads. The main reason is that if rain and water don’t stick to the road, it’s likely your car’s tires won’t either, which is very bad.
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Thus, it is not unreasonable to speculate that nanotubes could be used in body armor to provide better protection due to the nanotube’s great mechanical properties (I don’t know about “deflect” though).
2. Nanotubes current have no known “healing” effects that I am aware of. Thus, I personally find it unlikely that nanotubes will be used as a medical “healer”. However, nanotube may one day be used as electrical components (circuits/batteries/sensors) in medical devices,
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General questions are very welcome.
My personal opinions to your questions (the future is always hard to predict, so I can only offer you my opinion):
1. Search “Super-thin nanotube body armor promises to stop and deflect bullets”. It is an article on nanotubes for body armor applications. While I may not agree with the entire article, I do think that nanotubes have plenty of applications besides electronics.
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and one more ( i couldn’t fit it into the other comment box)
3. Could some solution be mixed into tar, or the blacktop used in roads to make ice and rain “not” stick to it?? therefore eliminating some of the worst driving conditions there are, and as a result less crashes and related deaths occuring.
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okay, i have some questions..
(im not too familiar with nanotechnology and what its puposes are, or what the possibilities are.. but here we go)
1. could N.T. be incorperated into armor, along with liquid glass, to somehow further increase the protection and flexibility??
2. as with what other people said.. Could it be used as some sort of medical “healer” to speed up the process of tissue regeneration?( it sounds sci-fi ish but idk, haha)
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I wonder how nanobots would “see” within the human body. I dont think any research project is being made on how nanobots would be able to see.
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carbon nanotube tech is the key to the construction of earths first orbital elevator
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yay science!!
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But, personally , I think it will be tough to do it by 2029, considering FDA approval will likely take 7+ years. Nevertheless, nanobots aside, there are plenty of other applications of nanotechnology that may and likely will reach us within the near future.
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And then perhaps some form of nano circuitry in computers/electronics and electro-mechanical systems for use in gyros and accelerometers. Of course, most of these will be improvements upon existing technologies, rather than explosive new disruptive changes; and that is partly because such improvements are more easily embraced but the market. Now, specifically regarding nanobots in our blood, I cannot speculate on if or when that may happen.
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Furthermore, for medical equipment in the US, the law requires a very thorough FDA review process before the product can reach consumers/market. So I must admit it will be very hard to accurately predict the future roadmap for nanotechnology. However, I will say that I personally believe that nanotechnology will make its way into our lives in some form or another within the next decade. It may first take form as nanomaterials coatings.
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Carbon nanotube technology (in terms of electronics) has progressed over the past few years to achieve very well aligned nanotubes and even small/medium scale electronic circuits. However, this is in an academic setting; how fast such technology will reach the market depends heavily on economic factors and forces. For example, whether consumers and even the industry embraces a technology will affect how fast that technology matures and reaches commercialization.
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How fast exactly?
I am particularly interested in medical nano technology
Do you think that for instance we can expect nanobots curing diseases in our body with 3 or 4 decades?
You should look Kurzweil up.
He says we will have nanobots replacing red blood cells in our body and a whole lot of other stuff by 2029. Would you agree with that or do you think it might take a lot longer?
Sorry for these kinda weird questions. Its just that i never had a chance to talk to a scientist on youtube.
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Hi n1bigdaddy,
Thank you!
This technology is indeed fairly fast growing, and I expect it to continue to grow at a fairly accelerated rate.
With regards to Ray Kurzweil, I am not familiar with his work, so I cannot comment on it.
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Great video.
Lately i have been reading quite a lot about nanotechnology and I was pleasantly shocked when i realized just how fast this technology is growing.
What i also noticed is that people act like its still science fiction.
I also read some of Ray Kurzweil’s articles and plan to read his books. Could you, as a scientist, tell me if the scientific community agrees with his timescale till singularity or whatever you guys call it.
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this is cool stuff…im an electrical engineer and i work at a nuclear plant…if i wasn’t doing that i’d definitely be going into this field…its the wave of the future!
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excellent work!
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very good vid answered alot of questions
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Very nice video!
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…commercialized, that will depend on the industry. If the industry decides, for whatever reason, whether justified or not, it doesn’t want to manufacture such products as soon as it’s feasible, then CNT CPUs may not come about until much later. (Much like touchscreens…the technology has been around for a long time, but it hasn’t seen widespread commercialization until recently, in cash registers and the iPhone).