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Tag Archive for nanotech

Minutae ASSEMBLE!

March 29, 2015 future, Writing Comments Off on Minutae ASSEMBLE!

http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news/newsid=39572.php

There are a lot of different lenses you can use to look at nanotechnology.  I personally prefer to use the tightest possible one, to look at machines that are built on a molecular scale (rather than just run of the mill itty bitty machines).

When you get that small, everything becomes chemistry and physics.  The standard model of how to assemble objects, or how to get parts to interact with one another, must be set aside because you are no longer dealing with things can be assembled with a hot-glue-gun and rivets, but things that have to WANT to come together.  You are attaching pieces to other pieces through chemical bonds, rather than just physical attachments.

So I am always delighted when I run across something new in this space.  The article referenced above is looking at ways to assemble nano-molecular machines not by chemistry alone, but rather by the physical shapes and attributes of the proteins that make up different parts.  It’s almost like a very fancy 3d puzzle.

Teeeeeeny weeeeeny Science

March 2, 2015 future, Writing Comments Off on Teeeeeeny weeeeeny Science

http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/paper?S1600577514025715

The fiction I write right now is almost exclusively science fiction, often with a cyberpunk or a nanotech element.  That hasn’t always been the case, I’ve done turns with low-fantasy and historical fantasy, but right now the things that interest me, the “what-ifs” that have potential are in the sciences.

So when I find something that relates directly to a what-if (in this case I’m building a world where nanotech-scale tools are prevalent) I do my digging to see where the technology actually is, and where it might go from here.

When you get to the nanoscale level, all kinds of interesting new requirements come into play.  You have to account for things like the temperature of the room, the amount of expansion in an instrument because of the heat generated by the bulb that illuminates your experiment area.  Things get very *very* precise and so developments in that precision because very important.

All of my science is informed.  I may choose to use a “pop-sci” version of that science, but that’s almost always a conscious decision to try to keep my stories more accessible, to try and keep them out of the realm of “hard” science fiction and so touch a broader audience.

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