[extropy-chat] nano limit/hassle?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Sep 24, 2005 at 02:38:01PM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote:
> http://www.eurekalert.org/context.php?context=nano
> 
> 
> Physicists measure tiny force that limits how far machines can shrink

Of course it doesn't. The reporter misreported. Bad reporter, no Pulitzer prize.
 
> University of Arizona physicists have directly measured how close speeding 
> atoms can come to a surface before the atoms' wavelengths change.

=Somebody has measured van der Waals force in a new way.

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/bonding/vdw.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_der_Waals_force
 
> Theirs is a first, fundamental measurement that confirms the idea that the 
> wave of a fast-moving atom shortens and lengthens depending on its distance 
> from a surface, an idea first proposed by pioneering quantum physicists in 
> the late 1920s.

Perhaps less than pioneering in late 2005.
 
> The measurement tells nanotechnologists how small they can make extremely 
> tiny devices before a microscopic force between atoms and surfaces, called 
> van der Waals interaction, becomes a concern.

What will the press think of next? OMFG, Scientists discover pi complexes?

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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