
ACS Adds Nanotech Division 117
Phase Shifter writes, " The Materials subdivision within the American Chemical Society's Industrial & Engineering Chemistry division has now become the Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology subdivision.
This means that ACS members researching into nanotech now have their own forum for information exchange, where previously it was scattered among several different divisions. Hopefully we'll be seeing faster progress in the field as a result.
"
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
- SnoTroller
Masturbate a lot (Score:1)
Of course I know who Linus Pauling is... (Score:1)
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:1)
hate/jelousy - food/energy - peace/war (Score:1)
I don't think you understand human psyche very well.
> After all, hate is just an expression of
> frustration/jealosy.
Hate is many things. Hate has many faces. Hate can come from all places, even places that you can never imagine !
In fact, there _are_ people who like to hate just for the fun of it.
I mean, look at the klans in America. They are white, they have more opportunities than the "colored" minorities, and yet, the klans just lourvvvves to showcase their hate publicly.
Have you ever listen to the hatefilled speech by the klans? I have. I just couldn't understand what motivates those people to hate so much, and yet they do.
And the hatespeech isn't limited to the klans either. Politicians do it all the time, and what kind of "frustration" or "jealousy" those politicians have?
I mean, look at Jesse Helms. Look at him. He is rich, well fed, highly educated, and in some manner, is a cultured person.
But if you listen to his speech, man.... talk about hate, HATE !
What makes Jesse Helms hate so much? What is there in his well-fed, well-lived, wealthy, comfortable life to make him feeling "frustrated"?
Is there any OBVIOUS thing that Jesse Helms jelous about?
No. At least, I can't find anything that worth Jesse Helm's to raise his druff.
I mean, if I am Jesse Helms, I have so much money, I have so much power, my health is good, I have a good family, everything around me is good, I have no reason whatsover to hate or to feel jealous about.
But Jesse Helms still operates under the "HATE" banner !
I hope that by now we should understand that that neigher "Frustration" nor "Jealousy" can explain why people hate others.
> If you have enough food/energy, you won't wage
> war.
Hmmm... really?
Tell that to the people who were under attacked by Uncle Sam.
It wages war on Vietnam, on Nicaragua, on Honduras, on so many places, and you like me to believe that America has not enough food, nor enough energy?
Hmmm.....
Scientific Advancement (Score:1)
> scientific advancement is advancement tat is
> scientific
First of all, thank you for saying that.
It is succinct, to the point, and it gives a vvry clear message that "Scientific Advancement" is just that, an "advancement" that is scientific.
Many people have somehow stop thinking that way.
They equate "scientif advancement" with "something that is good", or "something that is moral", or "something that will bring peace".
Not necessarily so.
Almost everything we have can be used to do things that are good to people, or things that are bad.
Like fire. We can use fire to cook, and we can use the same fire to burn people alive.
Like nukes. We can use the advancement in understanding of the nuclear science to make productive things like MRI, or transform onto the power generated by nuclear reaction into electricity, or we can use the nuclear knowledge to make weapons of mass destruction like Nuclear Bombs.
It is ultimately the people, us, who has to decide what we want to use the tool we have for.
We are on the Net. We can use the Net to advance humanities, or we can use the net to spread vicious lies, disseminate prejudices, or get little boys and girls to do kiddie porn for us.
The choice is ours. We can do good if we want to, or we can become the fiercest destructive beast ever existed in time.
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:1)
Trollking, you've got a good point. Nationalism is something we hardly understand here in the United States. We understand money, and grew up with the saying "the root of all evil is the love of money" and so we attribute all evils to it. Don't get me wrong, money is a huge cause of problems, and nanotech might possibly be a tool that could reduce all those problems. But we must not be naive and thing that this is the invention that will end all wars. It is not, and could be used to make war even more horrible than it already is.
I don't want to sound pessimistic. The world after the invention of nanotech will be better than the world before the invention. But it will not be a perfect world with no war.
First Posters? (Score:1)
Now, as the era of nanotechnology gets nearer and nearer, I would like to have a poster sized copy of this for my wall. Anyone know where I can get this (or any other STM pictures or photomicrographs)
Re:Heh, now Microsoft begs for support? (Score:1)
(laugh)
Bowie J. Poag
Project Manager, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://propaganda.themes.org [themes.org])
Re:Graveyard Poem (Score:1)
Bowie J. Poag
Project Manager, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://propaganda.themes.org [themes.org])
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
Yeah, but it's the using it wisely that's the trick. One of the most probable scenarios I foresee is the prolongation of life without a corresponding reduction of the birth rate. If you think we had an overpopulation problem in the 20th century, just wait until the 21st, when nobody dies from old age, thanks in large part to nanotech, and the babies just keep being born.
We'll need the nanotech that'll make us be able to survive in vacuum just to find a place to stay.
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation
Not sure but... (Score:1)
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:1)
Computers are a more difficult subject - it depends on where you look. ENIAC was designed to produce trajectory calculations for World War II, but electronic computers go back further than it - the ABC and Konrad Zuse's machines date further back (Zuse even tried to interest the Nazi party in computers for the war - thankfully, they declined). If you want to consider designs for programmable computers, then Babbages Analytical Engine would most certainly qualify (though it was mechanical, and not electronic or electrical). What you are thinking of the intricate patterns being woven is probably a mis-quote, or someone told you wrong - Babbage got the idea of using punch cards after seeing how a Jaquard loom used similar cards to weave intricate patterns in cloth - he figured that if the punch cards could control the operation of a loom, then it could control his machines as well.
Penecillan was developed somewhere between World War I and the Korean War - and first used to treat infection on a large scale during the Korean War (incidentally, I would say it was this development, and the MASH units, that really revolutionized war, in the caring for the injured quickly, at least). Sulfa based drugs had been developed earlier, but weren't as effective (?)...
Space capable rockets? The German V2 approached the edge of space, and there were plans (I have seen very little about them, but they exist) to build something called the "Antipodal Bomber" - essentially a suicide bombing run, using a dual stage modified V2, to put a pilot in a sub-orbital trajectory, where he could "skip" off the outer atmosperic layers, to prolong his course, and then angle sharply downward to explode a 1000 pound bomb in New York City. This was on the drawing boards, but never went past the concept stage.
Lastly, your comment on DARPAnet is wrong - the internet sprouted from the ARPAnet, a project whose goal was to connect various research campuses via computer at different universities across the country, using the phone system. It was never meant to withstand a nuclear war - this wasn't even a concern. It was meant to give researchers a way to share computing power with each other. DARPAnet (now
Is it better than Angele's Ashes? (Score:1)
L.D.
Is Tis better than Angela's Ashes? That I couldn't stand, I found it very boring, tedious and repetive.
I found the much vaunted humor to be about as funny as tying two cats together at the tail and flinging them over a clothesline.
The pathos was terrible, a rehashed Dickens.
These sentiments make me a pariah in my wife's Irish descended family, but their literary tastes are suspect, never having even read any Pynchon.
About the only saving grace is that I can't wait for Lego to come out with official Angela's Ashes sets, so I can build lots of grey, dingy buildings.
George
Re:? (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
But seriously folks nanotech may be the future but if we don't watch out it will be a very short future so we need smart people who are educated on the subject of how it can go wrong (nanotech novels) be the ones who actually do research in the field. Not the people who are like:
"I know how to combine molecules, lets see what happens when I change the largest plant on the face of the earth (algea) to create highly explosive gas. Then we'll accidently drop some in a local pond and in 6 months all the algea in a 2000 mile radius is producing gas. Woops we just had a big lightning storm and half the United States burnt to the ground!!"
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Re:pancake lovin' ninjas (Score:1)
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:1)
After all, hate is just an expression of frustration/jealosy. If you have enough food/energy, you won't wage war.
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:1)
As much as I love to hate the War Machine, I have to question the accuracy of your assertion. Can you document these, especially against these top-of-my-head alternatives:
Aircraft and Submarines I'll grant. The DC-9 was a military transport far before it became a passenger craft, and submarines were a military fantasy long before anyone cared about laying cable or exploring the ocean floor. However, consider:
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:1)
Actually, the Jacquard Loom has been presented to me on a number of occasions as the first von Neumann machine. It fetched instructions from wooden cards, decoded them mechanically, and then performed operations on warp and weave. As far as actual implimentations of Turing machines go, von Neumanns are pretty much it.
The German V2 approached the edge of space,
The V2 reached the edge of orbit, but was never capable of putting anything in orbit. And as much as Werner von Braun was instrumental in the US spcae program, Cosmograd had Sputnik blipping along before we had anything in orbit.
Finally, every history I've read of DARPA and ARPAnet has related them initimately, usually suggesting that the military had been working on ARPANet for longer than they let on (big surprise) and that they'd asked the academics into it. Furthermore, part of ARPANet's mission was designed around having a headless communication network that would continue to transmit orders and intelligence around holes (like those created by nuclear strikes), which accounts for much of the research into modern packet switching. I suspect we may be at opposite sides of the elephant on this one, though.
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
Seriously, Nanotech is such a young, immature field of science that we still do not know what knowledge is applicable. Get the basics right, then branch out into it when the field turns really hot. That is the chance to make your contribution.
Re:ACS's good choice of topics (Score:1)
Bueracrat Push Paper, Hemos post! (Score:1)
Re:ACS members (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
Oh, and you also forgot a few things. Let me list them. Being able to survive in hard vaccum without a suit or external air supply, DNA alteration, and the ablity to survive on nothing but heat and light.
If I forgot anything, feel free to add to this.
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
But seriously, if we do get viable nanotech and use it wisely, then our only limits are the laws of physics and our imaginations.
Just think, more computing power in your underwear than in the biggest Beowulf cluster to date.
Re:I have to disagree (Forever Peace) (Score:1)
Anyone read James Halperin's "Truth Machine" or "First Immortal" ?
I ate grits this morning, but did not put them down my pants. Shmoooooo.
*give me a break!* (Score:1)
some people rather hide there head in the sand than realize the fiction part of sci fi.
beg borrow steal what you need to get into nanotech U (lol) i wish you the best of luck! wish i was going with you and cant wait to try out the uber server the size of a dime.
but im sick and tired of people belittling ourselves over science. look if some maniac getts the grey plague going then it will happen. same way anyone can push the button, shoot/stab you in the street and get hit by lightning.
chop up animals, blow up small islands in the south pacific, train ants to organize small screws in space! if i gets the rest of us who dont get to play with the real toys something like silly putty then im all for it!
(mmmmmm real toys... imagine no budget and a industrial/millitary machine to caiter to your every whim...)
yay! science!
BOO! ignorant parinoia!
"this is my computer, there are many like it but this one is mine" -AYP?
This is bad. (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)
Re:Ulterior motives? (Score:1)
Well, I don't know about all the possible Illuminati overlords that could be controlling the ACS, but on any level of rational thinking, they are not some shawdow industry puppet. The ACS is not a chemists organization, they are the chemists organization. They have been around for a hundred years now, I would think. Also, they are generally pretty liberal...read their book "The chemistry of mind altering substances".
Linus Pauling was a president of them for a while...I am not sure about that, although they could have swerved to the right in the forty years since his heydey. BTW, you all know who Linus Pauling is, don't you?
Re:Of course I know who Linus Pauling is... (Score:1)
I have actually thought of that before. Haven't made the perfect joke on it quite yet though. I didn't think of it while writing this post though. And I think that Torvalds and Pauling would have gotten along quite fine.
They were both alike in being geniuses both in science\technology and in politics. Although Dr. Paulings politics and science were more grounbreaking\revoloutionary then Torvalds', although they wern't as closely linked.
nanotechnology (Score:1)
Re:I have to disagree (Forever Peace) (Score:1)
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Haldeman at a sci-fi con a while back- he's an interesting gentleman.
I can assure you that the ACS is a reputable organization. My wife works "in the biz" and has been affiliated with them for some time.
It seems like just a few short years ago the very idea of molecular nanotechnology was ridiculed by the mainstream. Now the discussion seems to center around "when", rather than "if". It's good to see organizations like the ACS (and IBM, for that matter) lending some respectability to this field.
As far as literature on the subject, I highly recommend "Engines of Creation" by K Eric Drexler. This was my first introduction to nanotech, and it's well thought out. Drexler leans a bit toward the optimistic side (probably rightfully so), but he does cover the potential abuses of nanotech. The entire text of the book is now available online at
http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html
As far as fiction goes, there's a wonderful anthology called "Nanotech", edited by Gardner R. Dozois (ISBN 0-7394-0154-8). It kicks much ass! There are several different takes on nanotech provided, and they're all well written and insightful.
For what it's worth.
-Eric Krastel
News? (Score:2)
In nanotech, it's the little differences that count.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
I have a lot of respect to Mr. Haldeman (Score:2)
I do have lots of respect for Mr. Haldeman. His is the kind of person whose integrity and his dignity will never be compromized by anything.
MR. Haldeman is a Vietnam vet, and he has experienced many unspeakable things back then. Instead of feeling pissed off, (lots of vietnam vet are living the life of being pissed off all the time), Mr. Haldeman channeled his anger, his frustration, his feeling of helplessness and loneliness into strength, and he wrote many heart-wrenching stories to remind the world of our potentially destructive manner.
I respect Mr. Haldeman not because only his writing - which are very good, btw, his stories are of the highest quality, highly recommended - but I respect him because Mr. Haldeman can cut through his hatreds and his prejudices and in his stories, again and again, the hero fought hard against all the injustice, all the craziness, all the mind-boggling stupidities, to achieve the ultimate aim for a human being - to be honest to oneself, and to cling onto one's moral value and never let up one's dignity and integrity.
The message from Mr. Haldeman is clear - that all of us are capable of doing great harm to others, and if we want to become true human beings, we must fight and defeat our prima violent urge, and we must all strive to be a person who, in the end of the day, will come out all the better.
Thank you for bringing up Mr. Joe Haldeman.
Thanks again for this chance for me to say the things I have wanted to say for a long, long time !
I have to disagree (Forever Peace) (Score:2)
I also recommend "Forever War" also by Joe Haldeman, another Hugo and Neublar winner.. Though both books are not related, they are excellent reads. I would usually cring at war books, but Haldmean's sci-fi war fiction would grip you and transport you to the horrors of a real war (narrated from a real veteran).
As a matter of fact, "Forever War" impacted me more than "StarShip Troopers".
Enjoy.
--
ACS's good choice of topics (Score:2)
It's also good to see interest in "molecular-scale biomedical engineering", though this far along in the human genome project it's a bit of a no-brainer. Nevertheless, it's one of the areas where nanotech offers the greatest long-term promise, and it represents another point for long-term thinking on the part of the ACS.
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:2)
Re:I have to disagree (Forever Peace) (Score:2)
I recommend both The Forever War and Forever Peace. Also see if you can find his All My Sins Remembered.
? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:2)
Umm in the 17th,18th & 19th centurys the Brits had bags of food, bags of Energy and decided to invade pretty much every one on planet earth. The French and Spanish tried the same, in this century Germany started two world wars and they had energy and food. The US went to war in Vietnam and Nato went to Iraq.
The military always find a reason to go to war, and a reason to fund scientific research. The first use of most technologies are for the military.
Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:2)
Obviously we will have to find a way to use nanotech for good to combat the people who use it for evil. But we first reach a useable level of nanotech it will be easier to make weapons of mass distruction than it will be to make things to protect ourself's against the weapons. On the internet when a root exploit is found and used against people maybe a few sites go down and crackers steal some passwords and creditcard #'s, then 24 hours later we fix the bug and people update the software and the world keeps rolling along. Now when someone makes a nanotech weapon that kills hundreds of millions of people and 24 hours later we build some nanotech that combats it those hundred million people are dead and 100 of those weapons will wipe out the human race.
So in closing nanotech is cool and all but we all should be very afraid and cautious of it.
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Re:This takes more than chemists (Score:2)
Re:? (Score:2)
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Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:2)
So what do I major in? I was thinking I would take Engineering Physics. Is that the right route? Does anybody have any idea/clues/suggestions?
Re:Nanotechnology (Score:4)
Aircraft: Military scouting/surveillance
Nitroglycerine: Military munitions.
Computers: Military codebreaking, artillery trajectory computation.
Penicillin: Treating war wounds
Space-capable rockets: Ballistic missiles.
Submarine: Military spy vehicle, war machine
I think the Troll King has a valid point. Any new technology is optioned for and funded by the military first, regardless of the infinite number of peaceful uses. I'd expect one of the 'black budget' projects to actually get something akin to nanites working.
Project A1017, codename Alephnul. Covert infiltration, surveillance, and elimination of Known Foreign Hostiles through use of self-replicating micro-miniature nanostructures.
I swear on the tiny periodic table in my wallet... (Score:4)
As a chemistry major at Rice University and a student affiliate of the American Chemical Society, I can tell you that we aren't up to anything sneaky. I swear on the little periodic table that I carry in my wallet!
As far as the different divisions go (American, European, etc.), the society strives to promote active fellowship between members by having regional and national meetings to share ideas and promote chemistry. Among the student affiliate chapters, one of the main goals is generating support and interest in chemical education from the elementary level to the college level.
Those of you in the San Francisco area might want to visit the ACS National Convention [acs.org] being held there the week of March 26th. You're likely to find more information on this new nano division there.
For more official information as to what the ACS is all about, visit this [acs.org] site.
This takes more than chemists (Score:5)
From the ACS page:
Quite a breadth of fields represented here, and a list that illustrates an important point about nanotechnology -- by its very nature, you're combining a lot of areas of expertise. Right now, most of the work is arguably in the area of chemistry, but in the next few years you're going to have chemists, physicsts, mechanical/electrical/some new field? engineers, and even computer scientists working in the area. In the end, we're going to need to combine more people than just the physicsts.
Along these lines, I like what some universities are doing: check out Rice's Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology [rice.edu] and Cornell's National Nanofabrication Facility [cornell.edu] for examples of institutes that have been set up specifically to bring together the various disciplines needed to tackle this problem.
Oh, and a note to Technos -- as much money as even the military black budget has to throw around, we're nowhere near developing weapons-grade nanotech. If you want self-replicating weaponry, biological warfare remains your only "good" option.