Creating Designer Isotopes

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to a Michigan State University (MSU) news release, 'Made-to-order isotopes hold promise on science's frontier,' nuclear physicists can now start a new career as isotope designers. These scientists can build specific rare isotopes to solve scientific problems and open doors to new technologies. The lead researcher says this approach has already given us the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scan technology. He's now going further, saying that he wants to build objects 100,000 times smaller than the atomic nucleus. He calls this 'femtotechnology.' Also available are additional details and pictures of the tools used for this kind of research, picked from a 415-page design paper." Update: 05/11 14:30 GMT by SS: Readers have noted that the summary inaccurately portrays the scale of the 'femtotechnology.' The MSU researcher refers to "the capacity to construct objects on an even more minute scale, that of the atomic nucleus 100,000 times smaller."

Pushing Ice

The term femtotechnology to describe technology built from subatomic particles, as nanotechnology describes technology is not new. The first occurrence of it I've seen was in Pushing Ice [wikipedia.org]. Can anyone provide an earlier reference?

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Rudy Rucker used Femtotech in Freeware back in 1997, and I would be surprised if there aren't earlier references. It's a pretty straightforward step up from nanotech for molecules to femtotech for atoms.

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I first saw femtotech in "Pushing Ice", and it seemed to me to be the natural result of the arms race between science and science fiction. Since I'm now working on 45nM semiconductor technology, I'm right at the brink of "classical nanotech" dimensions.

This is not femtotechnology

The term femtotechnology to describe technology built from subatomic particles

This is not an example femtotechnology any more than chemistry is is an example of nanotechnology. All they are doing is sticking protons and neutrons together in ways allowed by nature. This is not "designing" an isotope since there are only a few thou

Wrong scale...

The size of the atomic nucleus, not 100,000 times smaller. One femtometer is roughly the radius of one atomic nucleus. And unlike the atom as a whole, the nucleus is very compact, about the size of its constituent particles. I don't think any kind of structure 100,000 times smaller than a nucleus has been detected experimentally.

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I don't think any kind of structure 100,000 times smaller than a nucleus has been detected experimentally.

What about electrons?

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electrons are point structures, how many times smaller is zero than a given positive real number? it's sure not 100,000 8D

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And unlike the atom as a whole, the nucleus is very compact, about the size of its constituent particles.

Not quite. First the real constituent particles of the nucleus are quarks which, as far as we are aware, are fundamental particles and so, like the electron, have no measurable size. As you increase the energy you will just see a quark confined to a sma

Real Kryptonite ?

So when I mentioned this to my wife the first thing she said was 'Does that mean we can get working kryptonite?'. Which leads to the question has he now put Superman in danger from every 2 bit criminal with enough money to order atrificial Kriptonite?

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Which leads to the question has he now put Superman in danger from every 2 bit criminal with enough money to order atrificial Kriptonite?

You mean, like, Lex Luther?

Cherry Flavored...

I bet that once they have these cool custom isotopes, they still give them that standard, gag-a-maggot, fake medical cherry flavor.

"Of course it will save you from cancer, but you have to choke it down first."

Ahh, Science Reporters flub it again!

I really wish they would find people who ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND SCIENCE to report on science. Not to mention the wording of the summary. One does not "design" an isotope -- what's there to design? All one can do is find ways to create these isotopes in quanti

Another glaring error

The chemical changes that brought about the formation of the elements in the bellies of stars...

If you're changing elements from one to another, it's not a chemical change. It's nuclear! That's one of the definitions of a nuclear change. What kind of science journalism is this?

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What kind of science journalism is this?

The usual kind.

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I guess in the broadest sense of the word "Chemical," if you completely stripped it of its scientific meaning and left it a void of its former self filled with nothing but the conceited misconceptions of a science journalist who took a year of Biology in c

Armor and Weapons

yee haw! Denser materials == better weapons for punching through armor - oh wait, also means denser armor!

Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein got there first. Tailored isotopes, novella "Blowups Happen". 1930's.

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More like 1940.

"Blowups Happen" had quite a few predictions that ended up being reasonably close. One was that nuclear power plants would use a steam cycle. Another was being off by only a factor of two for the explosive yield of fissioning 2.5 tons of

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But there is a link to his blog in the summary. Why would you not want to read that??? (Come to think of it, there's always a link to his blog in his summaries. Conceited arse.)

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Because we don't want to read anyone complaining about this guy. Surprise: you're a Roland too.

No e+/e-: only possible with quarks

In short, he's just "building" electrons and positrons.

You cannot build structures with electrons and positrons which are this small. The reason being that the binding energy for EM processes (the strongest force which an e+/- feels) is far too weak to confine the particles to a region as small as 1 fm. For example positronium [wikipedia.org] has a binding energy of 6.8eV, roughly half that of a hydrogen atom and hence it will be slighly larger.

The misconception comes about because the electron is not a particle but a wave. You can trap the wave in a potential but it is still a wave. The smaller the space you want to confine it to the shorter the wavelength required and as the wavelength decreases the energy increases (deBroglie wavelength lambda=Planck's constant/momentum [lambda=h/p]). This means that energies O(10^6) times larger than EM binding energies to confine an electron to such a small area.

The only force we know of that is strong enough to do this is the strong nuclear force which is only felt by quarks. Hence, given our current knowledge, the only thing you could build such a tiny structure out of is quarks...which is why the nucleus is made of these!

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Technically gluons also feel the strong nuclear force

There is no 'technically' about it: they do feel the strong force. However, as far as we know, you cannot create a bound state of just gluons - a so-called glue-ball - although it is possible that it may exist with a very short lifetime. If it had a lon

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Apparently the writer of the Michigan State University press release, "Sue Nichols", didn't have the slightest understanding of the subject either, and didn't care, because she said, "Isotopes are the different versions of an element." Maybe she was in a h

Mod parent up!

It is not that I am sick of reading stories by Roland Piquepaille. After all, I can choose not to read them. The problem here is that each time one of his stories appears, Slahsdot readers are brought to question the trust they put into the stories selecti

Re:Please no more stories by Roland Piquepaille.

I don't see how Sue Nichols is wrong.

She said: "Isotopes are the different versions of an element. Their nuclei have different numbers of neutrons, and thus give them different properties".

It is fairly accurate to say that isotopes are different versions of an element.

As for your remark: "Maybe she was in a hurry to go shopping", maybe you should slow down a bit? :).