[extropy-chat] nano limit/hassle?

[Damien Broderick]

http://www.eurekalert.org/context.php?context=nano


Physicists measure tiny force that limits how far machines can shrink


University of Arizona physicists have directly measured how close speeding 
atoms can come to a surface before the atoms' wavelengths change.

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.

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.
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