Could we produce a nanobot that could push two atoms together till they fuse??

I imagine a simple nanobot with two arms which would collect the two atoms and simply push them together. Is it possible for the molecular arms to have the strength needed to do the job? or would the molecular bonds in the arms just break apart with the forces involved?

You could make a nice nanobomb. Get a large bucket full of these bots to do it at the same time and bang.

Your nanobot is also made of atoms, as are you.

Yes, you can do some studying on nanotechnology, scientists can already push together millions of molocules from say; air, water, and soil to create potatoes, and what nots.

what IS it with you and the scientists creating potatos? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE show me an article or journal or SOMETHING that talks about nanotechnology as it relates to potatos!

-AntonK

To The Mods: If I seem rude, I appologize, but I asked him a similar question in another thread and he did not answer, I just want to know.

Could we produce a nanobot that could push two atoms together till they fuse??

IMHO, no. Fussion among the common susable elements, assuming your method is to create a power source, requires a high initial kenetic energy. For instance, to initiate a deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction, you need an initial kenetic energy of about .25 MeV, which is like two billion kelvins, a pretty hot temperature. I don't think your nano-bots could get the kinetic energy of molecules up to this level.


I imagine a simple nanobot with two arms which would collect the two atoms and simply push them together. Is it possible for the molecular arms to have the strength needed to do the job? or would the molecular bonds in the arms just break apart with the forces involved?

Basically fusion occurs when two atoms get close enough together that their strong force overcomes their electric repulsivity. As mentioned above, you need a large kenetic force to do so, their not going to naturally overcome their electric repulsion. The only real method to do this, is to excite them to a high enough temperature, for temperature is the average kenetic energy of a substance. I think you;d need more sudies to determine if im right or not, but i don't think your arms would hold up.


You could make a nice nanobomb. Get a large bucket full of these bots to do it at the same time and bang.

Would you like a glass of water Mr. President?


Your nanobot is also made of atoms, as are you.
Could you please elaborate what your trying to say? This really has no point, we know we're made of atoms, how does this statement contribute?


Yes, you can do some studying on nanotechnology

duh? i don't think the point of his post was to ask if he should study about nanotechnology, i think it was to assess the possibilty of nanorobotics in cold fusion.


scientists can already push together millions of molocules from say; air, water, and soil to create potatoes, and what nots.

Whats your source for this information? This sounds like on Star Trek, where they ask the "replicator" to make them a steak, i think your getting sci-fi mixed up with reality there buddy

It isn't just pushing the atoms together that causes a fusion reaction, if you're analyzing it at this level of magnification. You can push two atoms at each other all day and all you'll get (depending on what kind of atoms and whether they're the same or different kinds) is perhaps a covalent bond among the electrons.

It's the elementary particles in the nuclei which need to be put in close proximity to cause fusion. And at the scale of subatomic particles, you're talking, what, maybe ten to the minus 6 smaller than that of the atoms themselves. (Just a guess. Any physicists here?) You'll need a picobot or a femtobot or a yattobot, or whatever the next prefix is, to be able to manipulate particles at that scale.

And the problem is that the bot won't be much bigger than the particles it's trying to manipulate. Don't ask me how it will be constructed so that it has "hands" and "wheels" at a subatomic scale. It begs the question of discovering and using particles smaller than protons and neutrons to build a machine that can manipulate protons and neutrons!

Also, it will require tremendous energy to push those nuclei together. The input energy to a nuclear reaction is not trivial, considering the size of the output! How is the little machine going to be able to channel that much energy through its small body, yet maintain enough precision to be able to manually push the nuclei together by sheer brute force?

When it comes to science I'm an optimist, and I assume the answer to a question like yours is always Yes, if we just wait long enough. But the nanotechnology we have now, and the future nanotechnology we can extrapolate from what we've got and where we're going, isn't nearly small enough, precise enough, and strong enough to push two protons together.

So yes, we might manage to build a machine that can push two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen together and custom-build a single molecule of water as a science project. But that ability falls far short of what is required to cause a fusion reaction.

Now, maybe if the Home Shopping channel could sell him a little tiny Dremel, he could use it to break a nucleus apart and cause a fission reaction!

Thanks to Fafnir665.

I think I’m talking about COLD FUSION.


you need an initial kenetic energy of about .25 MeV

Can the needed kinetic energy be reduce by increasing the pressure ? A molecule could be made to collapse on its self creating areas of very high pressure.

It was Archimedes who said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to
place it, and I shall move the world." Or blindman says “...fuse the atom”.

I believe that the repulsive force that must be over come to fuse two atoms is higher for larger atoms. Thus large atoms could be used to push small atoms together till they overcome the repulsion.


Something I learnt about nanobots in the last day.
Nanobots are much larger the atoms. Nanobot is just a term for man made molecules. Nanobots work via chemical reactions, adding just one atom to one part of the nanobot and the structure of the entire nanobot could change.

Originally posted by Blindman


I believe that the repulsive force that must be over come to fuse two atoms is higher for larger atoms. Thus large atoms could be used to push small atoms together till they overcome the repulsion.



.25MeV is for an isotope of hydrogen

Anton K


heres the article on potatoes

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRep.html

Fortunately, we are surrounded and inspired by products that are marvelously complex and yet very inexpensive. Potatoes, for example, are made by intricate molecular machines involving tens of thousands of genes, proteins, and other molecular components; yet the result costs so little that we think nothing of mashing this biological wonder and eating it.

It's easy to see why potatoes and other agricultural products are so cheap: put a potato in a little moist dirt, provide it with some air and sunlight, and we get more potatoes. In short, potatoes are self replicating.


umm, this is refering to the natural process of potatos growing, not them being produce by machines

You could get your nanobots to re-arrange the molecular compositions of materials to make an extremely powerful bomb. Like re-arranging a potato's atoms to something like that of nitro glycerin. lol. :m:

Originally posted by Blindman
Can the needed kinetic energy be reduced by increasing the pressure? A molecule could be made to collapse on itself creating areas of very high pressure.Pressure is a variable that only makes sense at a macro level. It is a manifestation of the speed of motion of molecules and the distance between them. Fusion reactions occur at the level of subatomic particles, way, way past the point of being able to observe phenomena involving molecules.

I guess nanobots won't be able to create fusion by grabbing two atoms and pusing them one against the other ... but maybe we could build nanobots that have little magnetic traps and little accelerators and basically be a miniature powerplant ... but even this is going to be a very difficult task

We might be able to build extremely small nuclear fusion reactors that work in the conventional way, by using foreseeable technology to simply miniaturize the existing equipment. I don't know whether there is an economy of scale involved in the shielding, unfortunately. If it takes the same amount of shielding to protect us from the radiation of a powerplant just large enough to power a home or an automobile as one large enough to power a city, then my idea won't work.

Barring that complication, there are probably several ways to approach the problem of building small nuclear reactors. Is there a reason you think it should be done with nanobots? If you have a tiny enough conventional reactor, you could just use the nanobots to sit in the tiny control room and manipulate the tiny controls. Does that count?

Pressure must apply.. As I understand it fusion occurs in various situations as a function of pressure and temperature (kinetic energy). Inside the sun the fusion reaction occurs at a much lower temperature then is required on earth.

If two atoms are forced into each other by say magnetic fields. The atoms would have no kinetic energy (not moving) yet they would still be pushing against each other, is that not pressure.

Well I think there is much for me to learn.

I think nanobots are suited to the job because they would be cheap and easy to produce. I would imagine the bots being place inside a battery type device supplying power from the fusion release of energy.

Originally posted by Blindman
Pressure must apply.. As I understand it fusion occurs in various situations as a function of pressure and temperature (kinetic energy). Inside the sun the fusion reaction occurs at a much lower temperature then is required on earth.That is true. But remember that what we are always talking about is a model of the universe, not the universe itself. A discussion of the temperature and pressure inside the sun, which is, I guess (um, any physicists here?), on the order of magnitude of hundreds of thousands of kilometers in diameter, is a discussion at the macro level. Therefore, using the same model that we use to discuss the way our senses experience the universe is satisfactory. Temperature, pressure, all of those variables give us a model of the sun that is consistent with our observations and the rest of our macrophysics.
If two atoms are forced into each other by say magnetic fields, the atoms would have no kinetic energy (not moving) yet they would still be pushing against each other. Is that not pressure?Now your discussion has zoomed in from a scale measured in thousands of kilometers to one measured in Angstroms. What is that, about twenty orders of magnitude? (Still waiting for a real physicist to log in!)

Pressure and temperature are macro-level variables parameterized by the average rate of speed of the molecules inside a given volume and the average distance between them. You can't use this model at the micro level to talk about two specific molecules in that space. The law of averages says you might, at random, have stumbled on to two of them that just stopped moving and are three molecular diameters apart. At a macro level the temperature and pressure inside a volume of gas is the same at every point (assuming you didn't just start a reaction which is radiating outward from one of those points). At a micro level you just can't talk about the temperature or pressure of the tiny stretch of empty space between two molecules. The concept is invalid; wrong model. If there are no particles in that particular spot, there is no way to measure its temperature or pressure. It is just as invalid to talk about the temperature or pressure of an indiviudal molecule, since its velocity and distance from other molecules changes constantly, and, from our point of view, at random.

But you're zooming in many orders of magnitude even beyond the molecular level, to the level of the atom or to the level of the elementary particles that comprise its nucleus and populate its electron orbits. The human-senses model of the universe really doesn't work at that level. When you talk about "pushing" two atoms together, it's analogous to "pushing" two solar systems together. What are the odds that one of the planets of one system will just happen to collide with one of the planets of the other system? Can you push them with enough precision to cause their suns to collide?

And even this analogy breaks down at this point. The suns exert gravity forces on each other, so if you're pushing slowly enough and manage to get the suns close enough, they will pull themselves together. Atomic nuclei are just the opposite, since they are composed entirely of protons and (in most cases) neutrons. They all have a positive charge. If you manage to bring two nuclei close enough together for them to respond to the proximity, their response will be to repel each other rather than draw closer together.
I think nanobots are suited to the job because they would be cheap and easy to produce. I would imagine the bots being place inside a battery type device supplying power from the fusion release of energy.As I said, nanobots may have some role in such a device. Certainly nano- or picotechnology in general will. However, I'm still waiting for a physicist to log in and set us straight on the issue of shielding. I have no idea how much lethal radiation these tiny reactors will produce and how many grams or kilograms of shielding we will need to protect ourselves from the nuclear power supplies in our cell phones and wristwatches.

Can you push them with enough precision to cause their suns to collide???
That’s what the point is. I know that pushing atoms together is like squeezing a bar of soap. But squeeze it just right. That’s what the nanobots might be able to do.

I have no idea how much lethal radiation these tiny reactors will produce The nanobots would use the energy to produce electricity and set up the next fusion event. These devices should radiate almost nothing.

It would be interesting to know how many nanobots working at one fusion event every 100th of a second would be required to produce the same power as a 1.5volt battery..

Originally posted by Blindman
The nanobots would use the energy [deadly waste radiation] to produce electricity and set up the next fusion event. These devices should radiate almost nothing.Um, are we perhaps forgetting about entropy here?

Man… What a mind fuck…. Oppps sorry about the language.
What…entropy is the state of the universe…..
Does the sun forget entropy… We live in a grainy universe there are many sources of energy..
The nanobot cold fusion system would not break the laws of entropy.

We would be exploiting the imbalance that exists in nature as a result of creation. The universe is not smooth..

You will have to explain…

It's difficult to harness the waste energy of a nuclear reactor. Radioactivity is not a form of energy that we have learned to change into a more useful form. It is pretty near the bottom of the energy "food chain", sort of a "you are this close to entropy" milepost. I have strong doubts that the idea is practical. My instincts tell me that shielding will be the only answer and, therefore, we'll still have the problem of finding a place to dump little tiny lumps of radioactive waste.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Fraggle Rocker
It's difficult to harness the waste energy of a nuclear reactor. Radioactivity is not a form of energy that we have learned to change into a more useful form. It is pretty near the bottom of the energy "food chain", sort of a "you are this close to entropy" milepost. I have strong doubts that the idea is practical. My instincts tell me that shielding will be the only answer and, therefore, we'll still have the problem of finding a place to dump little tiny lumps of radioactive waste. [/


the latest reactors to come out of the research labs use the material till almost the last readioactive bit, leaving almost no radioactive waste, all the reastors you see littering the streets are the old school ones, built when the technology was in its infancy

Originally posted by Fafnir665
The latest reactors to come out of the research labs use the material till almost the last radioactive bit, leaving almost no radioactive waste. All the reastors you see littering the streets are the old school ones, built when the technology was in its infancy.Does that mean that we can finally use fusion reactors to generate electricity, "so cheaply that it's not worth the trouble of metering," as they promised fifty years ago? And the waste material will be so compact that we don't need to designate and entire state as the dump and figure out how to write DANGER signs that people will be able to read 25,000 years later? We can just pack it all into a small rocket and shoot it into the sun once a year? Wow, that will be perfect!

Sandia is researching "cleaner" H-bombs ignition, by replacing the Plutonium with another medium to produce the initial x-ray / gamma bombardment.

What they research is a spiral made of metal wire and apply a sudden very high voltage to it, just before the wire melt it will generate a strong magnetic field for a short time. In this short timeframe, the wire will vapourize and the resulting plasma will bounce away with such speed that as a reaction massive x-ray photons will be emitted. Actually the russians have found a crude cheap method to create the high voltage pulse, the use a crude EMP-bomb instead of expensive bulky capacitors.

NoW, nanomaterials could play a nice role in such a setup, if you make the spiral wire of nanomaterial with superconducting material, you could easily gradually buildup a large reservoir of electrons and then suddenly do something to make the wire loose it's superconducting quality (raise temperature for instance) I bet that you could far more x-rays so that you can even ignite fissile material of less than weapon grade purity.

Also one could study semi-cold fusion concepts by injecting H atoms in spiral nanotubes and apply the same trick on a very small preciuse scale (hopefully this razor instead of axe approach would allow you to have more costefficient fusion) But this is still highly speculative....

Why would we want to use a nanobot to create cold fusion? The power produced from the single atom would be minimal and likely to be unobtainable, the bot would be destroyed, a chain reaction is unlikely as most of the energy would be dispersed (as well as having the nanobot in the way of other fusioning atoms).

Besides is it not bad enough almost every other area of science is being used to kill people why add another to the list. Scientists have a responsibility that goes beyond both their company/institution and countries, it saddens me to see that people still give into their childish selfish instincts. Stick to Sex and Drugs for fun, war is just ultimatly self-destructive.

Now nanobots that could reproduce pharmacuticals is far more productive, especialy when it occupies our power-hungry leaders forcing them to ban certain types of research by falling for unproven public hysteria over an issue which does not ultimatly give them more power, and maybe more control over its own citizens!

Originally posted by Blindman
Could we produce a nanobot that could push two atoms together till they fuse??

I imagine a simple nanobot with two arms which would collect the two atoms and simply push them together. Is it possible for the molecular arms to have the strength needed to do the job? or would the molecular bonds in the arms just break apart with the forces involved?

You could make a nice nanobomb. Get a large bucket full of these bots to do it at the same time and bang.

I don't think the kind of nanobot that you're talking about would work to fuse atoms together. In fact, I don't think any nanomachine that would function like a machine that we would use at the macroscale would work at the nanoscale, because everything works much differently at those different levels. I think the bonds would break apart with the forces involved, IF it actually came down to that.

Also, try to think about what it's really like at that small scale. In aqueous solution at STP, atoms vibrate at 10 GHz. In each cycle, they move about half their diameter. Imagine trying to manipulate that. Impossible. We would definitely have to change our ideas about machinery at the nanoscale. We can't simply take what we already have and make it smaller.

The perception of physics changes a lot even at small scale differences. At your size, a drop of water is quite small. Shrink down to the size of an ant. Now it's quite large. Walk into it. Interact with it. Everything is totally different. This is a small change in scale. Shrink down to a billionth of a meter. Anyway, you get the point.

Biomimicry is our answer.

Nanotechnology is really the manipulation of atoms and molecules; it has nothing to do with fusion. To make nanotechnology work we can certainly take inspiration from biochemistry; we have nanoscale processes occuring in our bodies constantly, using enzymes and DNA, for instance.

To achieve fusion, and to manipulate protons and neutrons to create new elements and energy, would take technology on a much smaller scale- the picometre scale. Dr Hugo de Garis has suggested the name Picotechnology for such a science and branch of engineering.
Crude picotech already occurs in nuclear reactors when fusion produces energy or new elements ; creating tiny machines to manipulate subatomic particles may never be possible, but if it were, the results could be justifiably reffered to as Alchemy.

http://nanotech-now.com/nanotechnology-glossary-P-R.htm
http://www.orionsarm.com/glossary.html#picotech
http://www.orionsarm.com/tech/picotech.html

posted this in General Science, but this thread seems more into place:


http://www.physicspost.com/articles.php?articleId=105&page=1