From: Walter Watts (wlwatts@cox.net)
Date: Wed Jan 21 2004 - 15:14:57 MST
Problematic, yes.
Solved. I think not.
Walter
rick wrote:
> Walter Watts included a link to a Smalley article, I have some comments.
>
> Fat fingers
>
> Sticky fingers
>
> These two proposed problems are avoided by using a modular approach.
> Modules consisting of several to thousands of atoms are produced in mass
> using old fashioned synthesis. Products are assembled from these
> modules. Any fingers which may be used by assemblers (and fingers may
> not turn out to be the only technique employable) are then not so fat
> nor as sticky due to considerable dimensional difference.
>
> Secondly, Smalley seems to envision bonds being formed by a sort of slow
> and careful, and above all intimate, placement of reactants. This shows
> his lack of understanding of chemical bonding in general, and activation
> energy in particular -- not to mention his lack of imagination. When
> doing molecular assembly a reaction site on the substrate would be
> accurately targeted by the assembler and any component (single or multi
> atom) must be delivered in a ballistic fashion to the reaction site. If
> my hand is too sticky to drop a ball I may still be successful in
> throwing it. Or, in the case of a largish ball, the far side of the ball
> may be pressed onto a substrate and adhere there with more stick than
> exists between hand and ball -- allowing removal of hand without
> dislocation of ball.
>
> For christ's sake, even Michael Crichton (in Prey) was able to solve
> these two 'unsolvable' problems. Smalley is as a 'creation scientist.'
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Rick Woolley: Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
> Atheist, radical thinker, notorious f__k-up, late bloomer, and
> self-proclaimed singular authority on the abysmal depths of human
> stupidity that only we few lack.
>
> * Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :-)
> http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick@centurytel.net
>
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