Thread: Can you move an atom like this?

Can you move an atom using a atomic size beam of electrons or photons, or a arm made of atoms to grab an atom, or more simply a stick arm made of atoms to grab an atom? And unlike the AFM or STM microscopes, using one of the three ways would be able to move around the atom anywhere out in the open almost at lightspeed, and the device could be built at the atomic level using a AFM or STM microscope. Now I know alot more about this, but first tell me what you think and if it could work, I can probably explain anything you doubt or didn't understand, but I think this could work. And I should have put this at the begining, but if we can use one of the three ways, to move an atom anywhere out in the open at lightspeed, and using billions of the atomic devices to move billions of atoms, then the machine would be able to make anything.

Hey, did you know that our cell can move atoms by atoms, and attach the atom to a molecule: and construct another molecule from it? I just watch a video on youtube.com about Electron Transport Chain (ETR): a system which exist in your own Mitochondria which is constructing ATP molecule out of ADP by attaching Proton to the ADP using some sort of nano-machinery; a screw or wheel-like structure which push Proton into ADP. -I think such construction of atom-by-atom is not alien to biological system: it is just that we haven't see all of them yet.

It is a tutorial video in "khanacademy" channel in youtube, called ETR.

Any evidence that it can be done other than by biological means? This sort of construction by "spraying" on atoms has been a science fiction staple for years. This essentially what elctroplating does but I supect superbean is hoping to do detailed work this way.

Ya the cells probably can do such amazing stuff, and if that's the only way to move atoms and what not, sadly to have full control to move billions of atoms or mass amounts of atoms such as objects, the device might have to be made of super cells in a way that could make up a morphing creature and under our control, sadly that is something we would never be able to build at all, the cells themself would have to be massive possibley and other shapes and the cells themself would have to be totally different to move billions of atoms each in the right spot to build anything for what ever we control-input to it, that's something we can't build right now.

The only other option is to build simple tentacle like arms made of atoms that can pick up atoms, mabey even made of cells to last forever, two problems with that is we might not be able to make it out of cells, to difficult, and as for twisting and turning, to difficult to, so only thing we can build at the moment is a straight stick made of atoms, kinda like the tips in a AFM or STM microscope. One other thjing we might be able to do under the microscope is build a tip thing-same thing above but instead of have no moving parts mabey we can make it have 4 moving sticks, 1 in midle above the atom, and 3 around it to pick it up, and when it needs to let go of atom the three sticks retract up, and midle one moves down, taht should be simple enough to build in the microscope and work, right??? then it can move one atom anywhere very fast to controlled destination-inputed, because it can move atom so fast it can move thousands more in the same second, so just one atom mover can move billions of atoms in minutes, and the atom mover can make copies of its self oviously if it can make anything, by puting tons of atoms together in right place and each being right kind of atom, then if there's billions of atom movers, it should by comand, be able to perfect moves centrillions of atoms to make buildings and cities in seconds, just to add here too-the super computer controlling billions of devices with billions of inputes to each one individual ever nano second, can be made by the atom movers, that's hhow we can build a super computer to control this thing itself, Lastly don't forget we might be able to use a nano size beam of photons or electrons to move an atom anywhere almost at the speed of light, that's what I'm also asking all of you's here too, not just the one question above, but the 2 other ways I just mentioned to move an atom, beam of electrons or photons to move an atom, can that work?????? remember, Im not talking barbarian talk about using photons, I'm talking about a atomic built device shooting out a focusing beam of photons constantly being angled at the atom to move it anywhere at lightspeed. But can any of that work?

Also msafwan, I don't think even cells can move protons, you said that cells can move protons..? Cells can't move protons, they don't...

Hey guys this is important if it works, so we should settle this question fast, very experienced physics people need to answer this.... One of the big questions above, is if a atomic size beam of photons is able to move an atom, and just don't mention the other problems like how to know where it is or limited energy, just simply answer if photons can move an atom if perfectly directed at it in mass amounts, and if the photons could then move the atom up to as fast as a jet.....?

And anyone reading this that can't really answer still say your thoughts, meaning anyone reading this reply to it, this is very important, after all it's the thing that can make us into gods, it would be the end of technology, so come on, say your thoughts! Can we do this now and live like gods or even become gods, or is this something we can't build untill the next 50000 years???

Originally Posted by superbean

Also msafwan, I don't think even cells can move protons, you said that cells can move protons..? Cells can't move protons, they don't...

haha... ok, cells can't move proton but the system inside the cell does. Everything that is inside cells is in some way doing atomic construction; that's how it replicate gene, create proteins, and create a copies of itself.

Originally Posted by Sealeaf

Any evidence that it can be done other than by biological means? This sort of construction by "spraying" on atoms has been a science fiction staple for years. This essentially what elctroplating does but I supect superbean is hoping to do detailed work this way.

I think a very similar method is by using somesort of a scaffolding that attracts atoms to re-assemble into a desired shape. Here's one that reconstruct teeth: Painless Protein Scaffold Lets Cavity-Ridden Teeth Re-Grow From the Inside Out | Popular Science .

Originally Posted by superbean

... One other thjing we might be able to do under the microscope is build a tip thing-same thing above but instead of have no moving parts mabey we can make it have 4 moving sticks, 1 in midle above the atom, and 3 around it to pick it up, and when it needs to let go of atom the three sticks retract up, and midle one moves down, taht should be simple enough to build in the microscope and work, right??? ...

I dunno, maybe it is not that simple?... In nanoscale world stuff work very differently than in real world. For example: "At the scales of living cells or smaller, that task poses some unique challenges. Air and water feel as thick as molasses, and Brownian motion militates against forcing molecules to move in precise ways. In such conditions, nanoscale versions of motors such as those that power cars or hair dryers—assuming that we knew how to build them that small— could never even start. " - Powered by Google Docs

I think atomic construction can't get any better than what biology can do.

well, i only have a couple seconds here to reply but i'll just quickly say 1: you ain't making sense lol, protons are in atoms and nothing can take them out and put them in, cells cant move protons! lol...... 2: about the main topic now that this is all about, idk, mabey this might not be possible....I'm pretty sure using matter it is somehow possible to do what i want to do, which then I would become a god, I'm just wondering if we can do that now! or if it's something that is totally far away and can't build it, and we have to live and die,hoping there is a god to give us eternal life. If there ain't no god, and were gonna die.....my god we better start building this thing even if it'll take 60 years, because it can give us eternal life and anything.

okay... Proton is simply Hydrogen atom without its electron, make sense? In other word it is just a Hydrogen ion (H+)... but it isn't the same with protons from radiation because this proton travel much much slower than necessary to cause any cell damage.

Because Hydrogen is always made of proton & electron so it is easy to get proton by removing electron: a positive charge similar to electron but abit heavier.

A proton is a proton no matter what speed it is moving.

Why, Why! are none of you's posting anything that will answer the question!.... come on people!!!

The simple answer is "no". It is so simple that no one is giving it to you. The problem is that you are thinking of atoms as if they were marbles or pebbles. That is, things with a discrete surface that is more or less non reactive, so they can be physicaly pushed around.
Try thinking of atoms as clouds of electric charges. They don't have a surface you can grab or push against. They are "mushy". They can however be attracted by manipulating the electromagnetic environment. For an example look up the process by which iron rusts through a coat of paint. The rust does not just form after the paint has been worn away. Instead the iron grows "wiskers" of iron atoms piled attop each other in elongated pyrimids that penetrate the paint layer to bound with atmospheric oxygen. The iron and oxygen are interacting before they are in contact with each other.
That is the way to manipulat materials at the atomic level. Think carrot, not stick.

so are you saying at the end if it's possible or not?..??..........and because you say you can move atoms with electromagnetic force, but that's what I'm saying above is can you move a atom with magnetic/electromagnetic force? can you? because if you can move one atom...then you can somehow move billions constantly to make anything....so.....it all depends on if we can find a way to move one atom anywhere really fast, can we? with magnetic/electromagnetic force-photons???

I think you need to define what you wish to accomplish a little more carefully. Electroplating is 'moving atoms" to "make things". We have been able to that for a hundred years. What do you want to do that is different? Do you want to move one particular atom ? We start to run into Hiesenberg difficulties there. Or do you want to encourage one of a certain class of atoms to move to one of a number of a certain class of locations, this is more doable.

Well I'm saying if we can move one type of atom, and move other types of atoms, and can move billions very fast and accurately then we can then put billions of atoms all in the right way each being the right type of atom to make whatever you want....this machine is what can make us into gods....it creates evreything....so you reading this and the last post i posted before this should be all the information you need to read to answer:is this possible? So basicly put this post and my last one together and now answer...

Twenty-two years ago, IBM spelled IBM with atoms.

IBM Celebrates 20th Anniversary of Moving Atoms

Twenty years ago, IBM Fellow Don Eigler changed the course of nanotechnology research

Beginning of article:

San Jose, Calif. - 28 Sep 2009: On this day in 1989, IBM Fellow Don Eigler became the first person in history to move and control an individual atom. Shortly thereafter, on November 11 of that year, Eigler and his team used a custom-built microscope to spell out the letters IBM (NYSE: IBM) with 35 xenon atoms. This unprecedented ability to manipulate individual atoms signaled a quantum leap forward in in nanoscience experimentation and heralded in the age of nanotechnology.

Eigler built his scanning tunneling microscope (STM) in order to visualize and experiment with individual molecules and atoms. As he experimented, he discovered that it was possible to slide individual atoms across a surface using the tip of his STM. To demonstrate both the atomic precision and reproducibility he achieved, he wrote the letters “IBM” with 35 xenon atoms, each positioned with atomic-scale precision

ok but that doesn't really help this conversation..............this is nonsense, come on people answer the question, solve it, explain if it's possible or not.

If you want to teleport yourself into a "new" body atom by atom then the answer is NO. My guess is the answer will be NO for the foreseeable future. The problem is more than laying down atoms it is linking these atoms in the correct way which may require capturing the quantum state and copying that as well. Bring up this topic again in _______ years. Hmm, I don't think I left a wide enough space.

But if you say no explain why, I'v sugested three main ways- only ways to move atoms around and so on, atoms, electrons or photons, and I'm saying if we build a machine that can move one atom around and attach it to another atom, then it can make up billions of itself and we woud have billions of atom movers that could, if all inputed commands very fast, put together billions of atoms all in the right way and bonding them to make anything-what you commanded it to build, I think this could work because if we can build one atom mover,it can build billions more in a minute, and if we build some atomic - this is all atomic by the way - some atomic eye to see atoms, the atom movers could make billions of atom seeing eyes to see every atom in the room anywhere, and the super computer could be made the same way, make something at the atomic level-super computer, then use the atom movers to copy the atomic super computer a billion times and you then have a super computer brain that's like a brain that could be filled with billions of stuff and intelligence and whatnot and the brain could controll the billion atom movers and atom seeing eyes, and connected to the brain would be a huge electrical cord, this should work, if it doesn't one of you's should explain why it doesn't work, explain why we can't use photons or electrons to move atoms, and explain why we can't build atom moving tentacles-sticks-things, and explain why it doesn't work, explain the physics of why it doesn't work.

@superbean - It's not that you have a new idea. John Von Neumann proposed the idea that machines could build smaller replicas of itself which would build smaller replicas of itself, and so on till you get to the atomic level. This was in the 1940s and there is much literature on the subject. As Bachmann said of Cain's 999 plan, "Turn it upside down and the devil is in the details." We are currently doing work with 20nm features in the semiconductor industry and that is just 200 hydrogen atoms wide. In the biological industry, using the chemistry of life they are manufacturing various protein molecules using genetically modified bacteria. But still the only thing that can put an atom exactly where you want it is the atomic force microscope. I don't believe there are any unbreakable laws that say what you want to do can't be done. We just don't know how to do it. As Edison said, Ideas are 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. What you are suggesting is embodied in my sci-fi trilogy "Tillian 5" but it is a borrowed technology from a civilization one million years ahead of us. I actually think we will get there, in some fashion, much much sooner since we are near many technological singularities.

no when I said build copies of themselfs, I meant one atom mover at the atomic level, would build an exact copy of itself, and then there would be two atom movers each made of a couple atoms-150 mabey. then the two atom movers (remember, eather by shooting out photons, electrons or themselfs-atoms) would then create two more, then the four would create four more then the eight, and so on, then in one minute about, there would be billions of atom movers, each one could move thousands of atoms in one second, and there's billions of them,,, if with the brain I mentioned above, sending the the right input to each one, and sending billions of inputes to each one every second to all billion of the atom movers would be able to, literaly build a planet in one second I think, or at least a city in one second, a diomand city full of gold and everything that would be in heaven hahahahaha, because this thing could make air into diomand, by changing the oxygen into, um, diomand atoms just call them, and even if it could only move atoms it could still kind of build it because it could get all the right atoms and what not, and at least make a awesome city full of everything still, anyhow I thought it did work, I went to a university to see a proffesor and to use their atomic force microscope/scanning tunnling microscope to build one atomic size atom mover that can move an atom, and like I said move thousands a second, and build copies of itself so there are billions of atom movers, and so on to advance the universe, but he said no it doesn't work, so I'm asking the internet now, to see exactly if it really doesn't work, and why. so is it possible? Also that movie has this ''sci fi'' technolgy in it?? what's the movie called? I can't find it......and like I said though you say we can't get their yet but I'm basicly saying I know a way and is it possible? if not explain why?

actually you need a choreographer to move atom like this and like that!!!!

Crystal growth is the closest you can come to something that is self organizing on the atomic level. I suspect that you cannot build a self replicating atom mover with only fifty atoms unless you started with major subassemblies already constructed in a regular matrix that can be grabbed and used. This is the concept employed by many proponents of self replicating systems. I real life this doesn't get you very far.

well no I ment mabey 100 atoms even 500 atoms if neccesary to build the atom mover, anyhow that doesn't matter, did you read the whole thing I wrote before this? answer it if you can...

next step in this discusion should be........... "can you move electron like this?"

my aim is not to hinder discusion , but to add some humor in it to make it interesting.

Originally Posted by superbean

no when I said build copies of themselfs, I meant one atom mover at the atomic level, would build an exact copy of itself, and then there would be two atom movers each made of a couple atoms-150 mabey. then the two atom movers (remember, eather by shooting out photons, electrons or themselfs-atoms) would then create two more, then the four would create four more then the eight, and so on, then in one minute about, there would be billions of atom movers, each one could move thousands of atoms in one second, and there's billions of them,,, if with the brain I mentioned above, sending the the right input to each one, and sending billions of inputes to each one every second to all billion of the atom movers would be able to, literaly build a planet in one second I think, or at least a city in one second, a diomand city full of gold and everything that would be in heaven hahahahaha, because this thing could make air into diomand, by changing the oxygen into, um, diomand atoms just call them, and even if it could only move atoms it could still kind of build it because it could get all the right atoms and what not, and at least make a awesome city full of everything still, anyhow I thought it did work, I went to a university to see a proffesor and to use their atomic force microscope/scanning tunnling microscope to build one atomic size atom mover that can move an atom, and like I said move thousands a second, and build copies of itself so there are billions of atom movers, and so on to advance the universe, but he said no it doesn't work, so I'm asking the internet now, to see exactly if it really doesn't work, and why. so is it possible? Also that movie has this ''sci fi'' technolgy in it?? what's the movie called? I can't find it......and like I said though you say we can't get their yet but I'm basicly saying I know a way and is it possible? if not explain why?

Superbean; slow down. As people have told you things like this have been done. BUT only with specific materials. The technique that allowed the writing of "IBM" in little piles of atoms only worked for one material. Not just any atoms, just the atoms of xenon. Nor was the device itself, the machine that did the moving, a nano scale machine. I belive it was some sort of electron microscope. These are big machines. As far as I know no one has been able to make even the simplest nano scale machine. We are very far from being able to build nano machines that can build other nano machines.
When you talk about building planets or cities with nano tech you are really jumping the gun. Just cause you use nanotech does not mean the general rules of phyics don't still apply. To make a planet you need a planets' worth of matter. Using nanotech would not make material just appear. Nor would the ablity to acurately place atoms allow you to change them into atoms of other substances. If you want to make something out of gold you have to start with gold atoms, not air. Nano tech does not change one element into another.

no....i believe I'm right here, if we build a nano machine that can percisely shoot out *photons* at a atom enough to move it...constantly it would be able to push it...and with accurate percision of were the photons are shot would at the atom we would be able to move it anywhere in the open....almost at the speed of light, and instantly slow it down.....this is using the photons ok....and same for changing an atom...possible add or take away protons or neutrons and electrons and we can change a air atom into a gold atom....yes with this thing we could make air into a gold palace with miles of diomand...we must build thisssssss....your all wrong...it probably works....that proffesor who told me this wouldn't work was probably wrong.....it probably works.....we all...the whole would, should find some way to build this thing.....last thing i wana add here is if we built a nana scale device that can shoot out potons to move a atom anywhere fast, it could oviously make a copy of itself, and ya it can be small, because what do you think is building it...the small nano device shooting out photons to move atoms....so it is possible to make a nana atom mover device that shoots out photons to move atoms, and it can easily make billions of copies of itself.....and one atom mover would be able to move thousands of atoms in one second, because using powerful amounts of photons it can move an atom at lightspeed so in one second that's why it can move thousands of atoms, so billions of these atom movers would be able to move centrillions of atoms in one second, this thing, is ment to be able to make everything and anything, and if it can move that many atoms in one second, it can make anything instantly.