Talk:Nanorobotics

Nanite Word Origin?

Was the first use of the term "nanite" the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Evolution" or was it used before then? Brief google searches aren't giving me an answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.254.119.245 (talk) 20:52, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Nubot?

Does anyone have any more info to add on Nubots? the article really doesnt say much, im curious to know more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.169.7.115 (talk) 06:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

See DNA machine. Antony-22 09:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Last sentence of "Present research" section

Why is the last sentence "Ryan Richard Fleming loves Vanessa C. Wilkins?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.83.71.18 (talk) 21:17, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

T 1000 made with nanorobots??

where did you get that? it's a mimetic polyalloy not a swarm of nanites, unless i'm wrong. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by WSFWarlord (talk • contribs) 19:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC).

Snow Crash/Diamond Age deserve mentions

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.13.144.79 (talk) at 14:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC) (talk)

New ideas and theories that could be debatable in the later future (from Alanliddell)

I am User:Mumia-w-18. The following two sections come from text User:Alanliddell placed into the main article. I moved these here so that we could discuss these before placing them into the article:

Enhanced Immunity Theory

What if there'd be the possibility, of a man-made nanobot that could be injected into the blood stream that could act as an impenatrable super-immune system? The inhanced immune system could then act as a counter to other hard to spot/eliminate illnesses and viruses, such as AIDs. The fact that AIDs is such a smart virus, makes it dangerous virus; but what is better than having an intelligent microspopic machine protecting you as a tricky fabricated antibody like system? What if it also had mutating abilities that could trick other tricky mutating viruses/bacterias?

Nanobot Scare Theory

It is believed that if one single replicating nanobot escapes, it could replicate like a living virus. 1 soon becomes 2, 2 soom becomes 4.... don't underestimat the power of doubling. After a couple of hours, there will be trillions. Since they replicate by them selfs, they will be in a constant search for more raw materials; and eventually drain the Earth's resouces to zero, in there ever ongoing search in order to replicate. Alanliddell 11:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

These are ideas that I've heard expressed in an Outer Limits episode and possibly a book or two. However, to appear in an encyclopedia article, these would have to be properly presented, referenced and cited.--Mumia-w-18 13:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't have references but I believe the argument has been largely disproved, assemblers can only replicate if they have enough energy - and its likely to be many times what natural cells need - its called the 'grey goo' problem. By the way this article is very good, but I notice that it misses the name "assemblers", the name I use in my research. I also see that there is at least one other Wikipedia article on 'assemblers'. - Lucien86 86.138.140.107 (talk) 14:03, 12 January 2008 (UTC) (sorry can't log into ID at the moment)

I'm sorry to tell you, but no, this argument has absolutely not been "largely disproved". It is a high-probability existential risk for earth. It's absolutely not to be taken lightly. The scenario is usually called "Grey goo", it even has it own article. It's not in any way "scare tactics" for one side of the discussion, it is simply stating the obvious. Ran4 (talk) 17:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Gray Goo theory? It could happen, but it's not quite the end of the world. All that would be needed to prevent such a catastrophe would be the proper methods of controlling nanites (which should have been designed along side nanites to begin with) and the appropriate "nanite program" that caused nanites to attack and destroy Gray Goo nanites. The afflicted world would never be the same, but it would survive none the less. - Glitch Daracova (talk) 20:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Time Traveling Nanites

I'm pretty sure that they exist, just ask Tonic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.172.223.74 (talk) 14:16, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

inconsistent in Fiction section

In the section concerning Nanorobotics in fiction. Metal Gear Solid only is only mentioned with and I quote "and the popular video game series Metal Gear Solid". The other stated instances have explanations. Yet Metal Gear Solid is missing anything of the sort. Not to sound like an angry Metal Gear fan boy, but the "Nanomachines" play a major part in the series. It should make a minor note of some of the major applications of nanorobotics in the game series. Like, used as the radio or "Codec", Filtration of Information, Pain suppression, and Control and Monitoring of Private Military Company Soldiers. But it does seem A bit much to add all that. Some explanation would be nice. Though Metal Gear Solid depicts Nanorobotics in a rather negative and dystopian light. Something along the lines of: "In the popular video game series Metal Gear Solid, nanomachines have a variety of applications, from radio transmitting, and healing, to mind control." That doesn't seem a bit much. I would have edited it myself. But I wanted to run the idea past everyone else. Because if everyone else sees it as a bit unnecessary, then it must be. Kashmirxincx (talk) 09:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Inconsist Fiction Section, From Above^

Yes, it is inconsistent. Nanomachines are the single-most important unseen force in the Metal Gear Solid series. Many aspects of the series would be impossible if not for Nanotechnology, such as the Codec, mind manipulation, and healing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.59.200.82 (talk) 00:49, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia policy of neutrality

Some part of the article does not comply with the wikipedia policy of neutrality, then instead of focusing on technical matters, it provides information clearly biased for self promotion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.50.85.170 (talk) 15:37, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Time Traveling Nanites?

That seems to be a little far fetched, don't you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.59.200.82 (talk) 00:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, you should keep in mind that there was an expirement done where cesium atoms were fired through a tube and arrived at their destination a fraction of a micro-second before they were fired. (My science teacher told me about it last year, but I forgot where he heard it.) So, time traveling nanites isn't quite so implosible, now is it? Glitch Daracova (talk) 21:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have to contradict, but first of all, the experiment didn't involve atoms arriving BEFORE, but AFTER. What was interesting was that it was a "teleportation" experiment done by IBM. However, IBM did not teleport an atom. Charles Bennet may have laid the theory foundations for quantum teleportation, but there was no experiment at IBM. There were subsequent experiments elsewhere involving photons, atoms, and clouds of atoms. However, the experiments involving atoms in NO WAY teleported the atom or the clouds of atoms. In fact, they didn't even involve cesium. Scientist are IN NO WAY close to being able to teleport matter and certainly not a DNA molecule. The experiments involving atoms actually invovled ionic atoms and were performed in two groups, one in Colorado, the other in Austria. The one in Colorado involved beryllium ions, the other used calcium. But the ion was not teleported. What was teleported was the spin state of the ion. You may or may not know that atoms have different energy levels that they can exist in. One way to define those levels is by what 'spin' the atom has. What these experiments did was transfer the spin state from one beryllium ion to another beryllium ion without those two ions interacting with eachother. That is teleportation since information (the state of the ion) transfered from one location to another without going through the middle. But it requires two ions, one that starts with the desired state, and second that receives the desired state (actually, there is a third ion that is required, but I will not go into that). The same type of experiement was done on photons, where the state of one photon was transfered to another. And a similar experiment was done recently on two clouds of rubidium atoms (at Caltech), where the state of one cloud was 'teleported' to a second cloud. Some will argue that this was not teleportation as understood by the physics community, since the measurement and projection of the state is done simultaneously, but I doubt that means much to someone who hasn't studied this.

But let me be perfectly clear: no matter has ever been teleported. None! Only states of matter. In theory, the same process that allows us to teleport states of matter could be used to teleport actual matter. However, this would require unprecedented control over matter. We have exquisite control over the states of ions, which allows us to teleport the states. But we are no where close to having that type of control over matter. In fact, there are no ideas as to how we could ever get such control. If that happens (and that is a big if), it will not be any time soon. And certainly no one alive will be alive when that happens.

The proof that this happens is straight forward. You run the protocol that does the teleportation. Then you measure the state on the third ion and see if you get the state you sent.

The term for this is quantum teleportation and it is actually a more stringent requirement than star trek style teleportation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Neminico (talk • contribs) 13:14, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Trekkies, please get off this page thinking you know science. Electronic behaviour is nothing like atomic behaviour, not to mention in a bulk arrangement that is likely over 100nm in any one dimension there will be no quantum "teleportation" behaviour exhibited. Your talking about single atoms or electrons in constrained states. If your talking about the science, then you SHOULD know it, and you would never have considered such stupid theories in the first place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nebnobla (talk • contribs) 15:33, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Potential applications

• Genome improving
• Terraforming planets
• Megastructures

please, add some of the already existing references.--79.35.195.44 (talk) 12:05, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Space Elevator Construction (seen this mentioned before)

Nanotech based Roads constructed of nanites

• Self Healing
• Illuminated Lines
• Self Cleaning
• Self Maintaining
• Roadway acting as a solar conductor (spray on solar conductors have been demonstrated)
• Power/data carriers

BrentNewland (talk) 03:25, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

No mention of Richard Feynman, the Feynman Prize (Foresight)

http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Richard_Feynman
http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Foresight_Nanotech_Institute_Feynman_Prize
http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the_Bottom
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.83.84.47 (talk) 16:14, 3 September 2009‎ (UTC)

What does Feynman have to do with nanomachines besides speaking about them? The science itself is valued over the figures that come up with the science, any scientist would agree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nebnobla (talk • contribs) 17:26, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

NPOV Tag

I removed the NPOV tag from the heading of the article, it was tagged as such in 2008. Looking at the talk page, I don't see much evidence of work being done to correct this, or address it, so I'm guessing that it's not a huge deal and so the tag's just been sitting there uselessly. If anyone thinks that there are still POV problems with the page, put the tag back up, list your concerns (or just edit them) and we'll work on addressing everything. Lot 49a^talk 17:17, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I did not reply earlier as I fully agreed with the decision - also a new IP editor has replaced the tag without any real explanation of reason. I have removed it again until discussions commence.

The tag clearly states "Please see the discussion on the talk page" and that has not been done. Discussions here need to be made by the IP editor as POV issues or concerns cannot be addressed unless they are first identified. It is impossible to fix something when no-one knows what the problem is.

Also posted on IP chat page Chaosdruid (talk) 17:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Potential Risks?

The article is great and nicely written, however I am surprise by the lack of information regarding the possible "risks" such technology and applications could bring to our future. Advanced spy-robots, killer machines, etc. Nanorobotics open the doors for beautiful things, but also horrible things and it is the duty of an open encyclopedia such as Wikipedia to inform the public with the potential such a technology could bring from both the bright and darker side.

The article almost sounded biased to me, like nanorobots are the cure to everything and will solve any of our problems, without even bothering touching more sensible issues like what if insane individuals, crazy government, or other terrorists could possibly do to Humanity with such a technology in hand.--10:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.207.52.46 (talk)

You are both right and wrong. The risks everyone fears are unrealistic and mostly driven by the fear of uneducated individuals themselves, whom have an interest due to watching Star Trek or playing video game. So sorry, there won't be any functional nanites for some decades (or centuries). Of course, our civilization will die off due to reasons brought on by our own stupidity besides nanomachines, much earlier in this timeframe, e.g. global warming, overpopulation, energy/food crisis, etc.

But your concern that researchers are too positive about uses and ignore the detriments is absolutely true. Researchers in nano happen to be fairly narrow minded in some cases, believing you can put a structure inside the body which the body is not designed to accomidate. There are too many factors in such a chaotic environment to make these structure more compatible by design, our understanding is lacking astronomically compared to the far-fetched ambitions of researchers and what they believe we should be doing with nanotech. Other far-fetched uses include nano-repair bots, nanomachines in general (not fixed to substrate state), zero-valent iron environmental remediation, space elevators, cloaking fields, etc. This stuff will require some decades or centuries to become possible, if even possible.

Researchers may be thinking of spray on solar cells and space elevators but all we got is sketchy makeup and underwear you can wear for 3 days (due to nanosilver). These are terribly unsustainable. Perhaps the public should align themselves with reality, and stay wary of the farfetched nanotechnologies often advocated.Nebnobla (talk) 17:40, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

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Damage control

There seems to be some misconceptions about contemporary or even near-future nano-technological potential. Firstly, it should probably be mentioned that nanomachines are actually everywhere around us; inside every kind of cell there is a vast ensemble of biological nanomachines working in extraordinary ways - more complex and with such flawless synergistic coordination that we will likely never be able to reach such technological levels as an animal species. The first life on earth were machines that were able to differentiate different kinds of matter for specific processing, e.g. amoebas having to differentiate food from other amoebas. The evolution of this nanomachine process has manifested in the immune system of organisms in the form of macrophages. Biological systems are also compatible with stabilizing these nanomachines with specific pressures, media densities, and media chemistry to accomidate nano-specific instabilities and structural limitations, and also allow them to do work in a more efficient manner. So before talking about nanomachines being some abnormality to reality, take time to consider your own nano technological design; if anything, biological systems are described most adequately in describing the nano-technological nature of their systems.

Regarding anthropogenic nanomachines, we are not very far into R&D, at all. In fact, the references in the first paragraph of the actual article do not imply we have working nanomachines, they are as vague and overly-optimistic as any contemporary nano-microelectronics research; designing a fixed motor that responds to an electromagnetic field is just an adaptation of trivial mechanics to lithographic production processes. If anything, the research is most valuable in understanding what allows for such systems to remain stabilized and efficient in realistic environmental circumstances, the motor is impressive but theoretically expected. The nanocar would be a more impressive thing to see, though even it relies on trivial theoretical framework - it is just a sturdy structure (characterized by stable bonds) with rotatable bonds at the fullerenes. Of course, building the structure does deserve an applause. So in terms of contemporary applicability of nanomachines, we should be more fearful of natures own, such as viruses created in anthropogenic environments, e.g. AIDS, Avian flu, etc. It is also worth mentioning that not only do we not have the analytical techniques and machines to understand and design nanomachines, we do not even have the theoretical methods in understand how to do so. Contemporary nanotech is haunted by a limitation of analytical techniques, which makes our industrial use of nanomaterials and the subsequent runoff into the environment more troubling than anything - we can't measure environmental concentrations and thus predict their effects. This is a frontier perhaps people should be more doggish on.

There are also severe limitations to nanomachine capability, especially "nanoswarms". There are several obvious reasons for this. Firstly, environmental atmospheric conditions would not deem a structure with such a low mass to be able to adequately steer itself, even an extremely strong magnetic field would have trouble stabilizing particles in even soft breezes; the energy cost of resisting such natural processes would be astronomical and technically impossible even for nature. This is why some viruses, bacteria, and organisms spread based on environment chaos, and not by some energy-using mechanism. It is an overly ambitious thought to try to stabilize nanomachines in the environment, and beyond human understanding. There is also the question of surface oxidation in air and adsorption of aquatic natural organic matter (NOM) in the aquatic environments, which may electrostatically or sterically hinder any intended processes leverages by intrinsic structures of the nanomachine.

There are more obvious shortcomings, e.g. energy collection and storage. The nanomachine will have to devote most of it's structure to energy storage or production if it were to weather the natural world, though it is likely impossible anyways. Also, the energy forms of the universe are dispering due to entropy, which makes collection methods less concrete in terms of galactic colonization. Of course, if you do speak of "grey Goo", what you are really talking about is decreasing the entropy of the universe, turning everything into an orderly and predictable state.

In any case, this page does not communicate the contemporary or even possible frontiers of anthropogenic nanomachines. Perhaps everyone should take a more realistic approach to these concerns, even if they do not satisfy some need for them to be possible to substantiate your favourite sci-fi TV shows and books. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nebnobla (talk • contribs) 16:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC) Nebnobla (talk) 17:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Category:Nano technology in fiction

I believe this is a valid category. User:Ryulong has been reverting all of my additions to this category I created.There is a discussion on the administrators noticeboard. CensoredScribe (talk) 23:00, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

See WP:ANI#CensoredScribe's categories on discussion on how CensoredScribe is inappropriately making dozens of categories of questionable quality. CensoredScribe, this is not the page to make this sort of discussion, either.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 15:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm assuming there was a section on nanorobotics in fiction, why was this section deleted? Was it encyclopedic or just trivia cluttering up the page? JanderVK (talk) 20:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 September 2014

I sourced it properly, I made it proper just becuase you guys are retarded and cannot make virus based nano-machines does not mean that others cannot put my page back or so help me god Ebola will be the least of your problem.

Vmedvil (talk) 09:36, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Some of this stuff could be of use, but then you have some rather far-reaching bits of original research and then a strange blurb on mythological creatures. In any case, given that your additions of this content from IP accounts have been reverted twice, don't think this is the scope of a edit request. Also, it is inexplicably rude. Cannolis (talk) 05:53, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Virus-based

This approach proposes the usage of synthetic viral vector made by oligonucleotide synthesis such as retrovirus, lentivirus, and, adenovirus vectors to insert and deactivate genes within the human genome using reverse transcription with self-terminating loops to control the reproduction of the vector. Synthetic biologists have made many contributions to this area, making these living drugs do a wide range of functions from cancer cures to attempting to slow the aging process. The process of making these vectors is often called retroviral engineering or viral gene therapy. Retroviral engineering, a specialized branch of genetic engineering, uses engineered viruses to deliver after birth genetic alteration. This application can be used for peaceful, healing purposes, but can also be twisted by militant researchers into a horrific weapon of mass destruction making the atomic bomb look like child's play. These in hostile form able to cause an ecophagy event from one virion's accidental release. There being two types of chimera virus, the hostile harvester virus and the healing retroviral vector. These vectors can be used to make chimera animals and plants called genejacks or genetically modified organisms(GMO). Examples of such genejack creatures from mythology are the minotaur, kitsune, centaur, and angel being half human and half another species.

References

False Feynman endorsement

The section "Nanorobotic Theory" gives the impression that Richard Feynman proposed or believed that nanomachines were possible. In the linked article he makes no such claims. At best, he suggest the possibility of a machine comparable in size to a erythrocytes, several micrometers in size. But for the most part the article referenced focuses on minimizing components of machines such as computers to small sizes. I think the way the section is written leaves a false impression of Feynman's opinions on the matter. Klaun (talk) 02:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

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