Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!stanford.edu!rutgers!njin!paul.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Re: Diamonds? Keywords: diamonds, bones Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 02:30:49 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA Lines: 22 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu In article john@granada.mit.edu (John Olson) writes: > >Now, that's not to say that a nanomachine (or a cell) couldn't make diamond, >but it will be more difficult to synthesize than materials which can be >thermodynamically stable. There have been a number of such remarks. But it is not obvious that diamonds need by significantly harder to Nanofacture (is that a new word) than more stable substances. Because once you have positioned the carbon in the right place, etc., you might be able to zap it wigh an electric pulse much larger than is ever possible chemically -- while perhaps holding it under unusual mechanical pressure. Perhaps one point of nanotechnology has been overlooked: that when you do things one atom at a time, you're not at the mercy of the standard chemical constraints that come from thermodynamic statistics. Maybe there are even substances stronger than diamond that cannot occur in nature because the formation statistics are too unfavorable -- and yet are metastable enough, like diamond, to last a few billion years once formed.