Maxwell’s Demon: May the Force be With You
February 5th, 2007Imagine being able to aim a pen at a small object, albeit a very, very small object, and moving the object along a sloped hill with an invisible ‘force.’ Such a possibility, once the domain of science fiction, is now within the realm of possibility thanks to a discovery by scientists in Scotland who have built a ‘nanomachine’ envisioned 150 years ago.
The nanomachine is modeled after a theoretical piece of engineering known as Maxwell’s Demon, named after the famous scientist by the same name, James Clerk Maxwell. Over a century ago he envisioned the possibility of a small, molecular demon-like creature that had the capability of trapping molecules as they moved along a certain direction. Specifically, he imagined two chambers filled with molecules, some moving at a rapid speed (thus creating heat), and others moving at a slow speed (thus creating cooler temperatures). The chambers would be separated by a gate, and a small ‘demon’ would act as a gatekeeper, with his sole purpose to trap the faster moving molecules into one chamber, and leaving the slower moving molecules in the other chamber. Thus, heat would exist in one chamber, and cold in the other, creating the perfect setup for a steam engine.
Well, through Nanotechnology, scientists have created an invention that approximates Maxwell’s vision. Physicists at the University of Edinburgh created a device that traps molecules as they move along a certain path, much as Maxwell predicted. The device is based on light to generate the initial energy. Future applications of the device would be for laser technology, where you could trap molecules in such a way as to create a ‘force’ in front of an object to move it along. Thanks to Nanotechnology, Maxwell’s demon has come of age.
Nanotechnology as the Next Big Thing
January 24th, 2007Could Nanotechnology displace the Internet as the Next Big Thing? The prospects are certainly real, if the technology lives up to the Utopian vision presented by its biggest proponent.
I have recently read (again) Eric Drexler’s seminal treatise, Engines of Creation. As I pore over his book, I can sense how with baited breath he speaks of the coming dawn of Nanotechnology and the promise it holds for curing man’s ills. It is a world filled with Nanomachines, Assemblers, Replicators and Nanocomputers that can create new materials out of existing molecules, repair cells, regenerate new Nanomachines, and fabricate whole new worlds out of the infinitesimally small.
Such a revolution in technology would certainly dwarf the impact that the Internet has had on business, but Nanotechnology need only fulfill a fraction of its true potential to create a revolution in the Business world. By all accounts, it seems to have done that already. However, unlike the Internet Bubble that littered the landscape with speculative “dot com” crashes, companies that have benefited from Nanotechnology have been established industries.
Some examples include the oil and gas industry, where Nanotechnology helped refine fuels to greater levels of efficiency. In the household goods and sport arena Nanotechnology’s impact can be felt in greater measures. The guiding premise of Nanotechnology—the ability to manipulate matter at the molecular level to build something new—has had obvious direct impact in industries that deal in fabrics. Footwarmers with greater heat resistance, washable bed mattresses, new, improved golf balls, camera films with finer degrees of emulsion, are all products that benefit from Nanotechnology’s ability to manufacture on the scale of one one-billionth of a meter.
The estimated market for goods engineered on this tiny scale is $1 trillion by 2015. That’s just if present trends continue. Wait until the day of the Nanocomputer arrives—the money spent to built that device will make current investments by Intel and the major computer manufacturers a drop in the bucket. So yes, I guess I do believe Nanotechnology is the next big thing.
