Saturday, May 5, 2012

picture for the day/ Bern clock tower


It's my understanding that the patent office that Einstein worked out his special relativty is close by to this clock tower.  The clock tower goes back to like 1100 A.D.  The clock tower got an astronomical facelift in the 1500s.

Shortly, clock makers in Germany(not to far from switzerland) made 'Nuremberg eggs.'

This according to a wiki article is amongs the first nuremberg eggs; looks nothing what they famously look like,


Here's an interesting Nuremberg Egg,


The point is that after the translations of the Greek classics from Arab spain translations around 1066 a.d, astronomy and clock making was the high science and technology of the day. And, making things smaller seemed to make for advantages than making big clock towers like the Bern clock tower.

Curiously, when the steam engine was shrunk to smaller sizes, the steam engine made itself ever more usefull; the car and the airplane.  Perhaps this is suggestive; after a technological breakthrough, make it small and see what that brings.  Computers?  How about artificial intelligence?  I've seen suggestions of micro and nano antenna's that can make photoelectricity and even quantum computers more practical.  Of course, the real idea of Richard Feynman/Eric Drexler nanotechnology is to make small nanofactories; what can that do?  It can make everything ten to thousands of times better for the price of planting potato seeds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Richard Feynman/Eric Drexler nanotechnology is nanomanufacturing.  They want to have the ability to pick up an atom and discreetly place it somewhere else; and then make macroscopic products just like that to atomic specification.

Well, doing this by bacteria is still not quite ideal; but, it is a step!  Could one call this actual nanomanufacturing Feynman/Drexler style?  Sure!  Welcome to the nano era?  Sure! Do we have a long ways to go before nanomanufacturing recycles the industrial world and puts us in a bit of a sci-fi world?  Yes!  But, it will be exciting along the way!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.201101627/abstract



this same group also made nanowires to connect and make electronic circuits with bacteria!

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.201102446/abstract


And, in even more nano news!  Some actual working nano piezo's have been created for use in kinetic energy generating devices(just walking around on your shoes could create energy).  Now, if they can just create nano-stm's using nano piezos!




No comments:

Post a Comment