Rice University nanodragster rolls on carbon buckeyball wheels, lives life .0005 inch at a time
By Tim Stevens 
posted January 25th 2010 10:05AM
posted January 25th 2010 10:05AM
posted January 25th 2010 10:05AM
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Ruck Fice!
@shadowj0
Sorry, my inner Coog got out. Don't downvote it, please.
They already have nano-cars. This nano drag-racer is somewhat revolutionary, but the difference in speed compared to older car models is "negligible", pun intended.
Hopefully, nano-assembly machines will be the next "big" thing, pun intended. Here's hoping for the best.
@shadowj0
Jeez...y'all haters. How about moving away from nano-transportation and more towards nano-assembly? I don't dislike nanotechnology's potential.
I still stand by my comment. Ruck Fice.
That thing gotta HEMI?
Scientist 1: So, how is that cure for cancer going?
Scientist 2: *shrugs* Dunno, but I made this really sweet drag racer!
@GenericMessage
Nanomachines -just- like this one, are the key to cell manipulation. So, in a way ..
Scientist 2: "But we found a great way to use this sweet drag racer to smash cancer cells in a demolition derby!"
@martinbogo
Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!
@GenericMessage
Because cancer research and nanoassembly are totally done by the same groups of people.
@Editors
What's a 'Univerity'?
@xz87
A univerity is the One Truth. And that's PAUL PIERCE!!
*eagerly awaits the debut of the new NBA - Nano Buckyball Asswhopping*
@xz87 It's like verity, but only one of them.
and i thought the Smart cars were small
woo, go Dr. Kelly! Perhaps the nicest guy in the EE dept.
i wonder how fast that is when put to scale.
I imagine that 0.0005 inches per hour is quite fast if you scale it up to the size of a real dragster. Anyone wanna do the math?
@inmyhead it's hard to find an accurate length for the nanodragster, but based on the size of a carbon atom, I get ~30 miles an hour equivalent as a ballpark figure - but that calculation has pretty big error margins, so all you can really say is it's a similar order of magnitude to a real dragster
@grahams
http://pubs.acs.org/appl/literatum/publisher/achs/journals/production/orlef7/2009/orlef7.2009.11.issue-24/ol902312m/images/large/ol-2009-02312m_0006.jpeg
With the information shown here, and assuming a dragster of around 8 meters, I find that the car actually would move around 56 km/h, so only slightly quicker than your estimate ... it would also be hilariously wide, but...
The only thing that car is missing is spinners!
@deciBels
Ewww, really? Spinners? Let's leave it be xD
Well a real dragster moves around 30,000,000,000 times as fast and I would assume this thing is a lot smaller than 1/30,000,000,000 scale.....
@forHim247 well, the nano-dragster looks to be around 20ish carbons long. Carbon has a Van der Waals radius of around 1.7 Angstrom, which is about I think 1.7 x 10^-10 meters. So if a dragster is 22-23 feet (not sure about that) then they are about 6 meters long. 6m / 1.7E-10 is somewhere around 1/ 3.5E-9 of 6m, so it's actually around 1/3,500,000,000 scale (rough estimate).
So if your math is correct, and I am really awake enough to do my arithmetic properly (which is questionable because I just rolled my ass out of bed and am in pre-coffee mode) then these things need to pick up the pace and move around 10x faster to be a scale dragster.
Maybe someone can check my numbers. I don't trust myself to put my socks on right now, let alone do simple math.
@PerryAJ if i did my math right i believe u are way off since 20*1.7e-10 is 3.4e-9. If you multiply this by 3.0e10 u get 102. Which would mean that the nanodragster is going 17 times slower if i did my math right. Then again i just woke up too.
They see me rollin, they hatin....
@Jeff
Only question I ever thought was hard
Was do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?
I spend every weekend
at the renaissance fair
I got my name on my under wear!
That's plenty fast for the job asked of it.
When you consider the possibility that they may one day replicate, distance isn't too big of a factor vs speed of replication.
TYPO in headline!
@joseadan88 Yeesh, thanks, fixed.
I'm going to copy/paste my last comment I made on a similar article:
I hate to be the rain on the parade, but this stupid sh*t never leads to anything ever. how many times have they taught bacteria to spin a gear, or form a star and rotate to the left (quite a few if you keep up with this stuff)? I'm afirad this is just some university students trying to make an interesting thesis
Finally a better SmartCar
VTEC just kicked in, yo!
Oh the marketing opportunities...
Chevrons got techron? Well mobil fuel has tiny dragsters in their fuel that deliver your gas right to where it needs faster
It looked like a turd to me at first
"FILED UNDER: Transportation"
Why is this filed under transportation??? who is planning on riding this bad boy?
And after doing a little math and don't quote me since is all approximations the nano drag-racer will only go about 4 mph
We have to do something right now. We have to stop that "micronanomonstrosity" now. Otherwise "global nanowarming" is coming. Mark my words. I did look into the future: Al Gore Junior VIII is waiting.
How does it move? What causes the tires to spin?