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How do disassembler nanites chew through so much so fast?

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Wed, 2012-07-25 23:59
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NewtonPulsifer NewtonPulsifer's picture
How do disassembler nanites chew through so much so fast?
One thing I can't figure out is how the disassembler nanites work? If I programmed them to break down my 250 gram filet mignon, do they just dice it into very small pieces like a bunch of tiny army ants? On that note, shouldn't it be a lot harder to disassemble a 250 gram diamond? As in probably impossible? I don't see how they could contain enough energy within themselves to achieve this feat. I'm thinking in my EP universe of reducing the abilities of disassembler swarms quite a bit unless they're eating something that can provide energy for their use. An alternative is them delivering some sort of micro-explosives I suppose, but that would be very "one shot" so to speak. The 200grams or so of nanites in my grenade aren't going to cause any more overall damage than a high explosive grenade itself, except that the damage would be delivered over a longer period of time and probably much more targeted. Anything I'm missing?
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"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."- Isoroku Yamamoto
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Thu, 2012-07-26 05:56
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
I did an analysis of this in
I did an analysis of this in the http://eclipsephase.com/disassemblers thread a while ago in regards whether it would make sense to have disassembler bullets:
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Simple physics argument: a disassembler swarm is essentially a very odd corrosive chemical (with very big molecules) that uses its own stored chemical energy to break down chemical bonds. The swarm stores energy in some chemical form (whether nanotech springs or high energy molecular bonds - carbon nanotube springs can store 7.2 MJ per kg, fat 37 MJ/kg, gasoline 47.2 MJ/kg - the later two requires oxygen to react). This is means that unless the swarm can refill energy or is very selective in what it can break down it will not be able to break down a much larger mass of matter than itself. So the bullet might take a few grams of armour and body with it, but it will not disintegrate a kilogram chunk. Note that this is a disassembler swarm made to disassemble anything. Suppose you instead just want to disassemble protein. Then you will hydrolyse peptide bonds, which in theory should net you some 8–16 kilojoule/mol, but most likely you will need to supply some energy to mince them up (and move around, identify proteins etc). Let's say you pay 100 kJ/mol to cut the bonds. Collagen (tropo-collagen) has a molecular weight of around 300,000, so 1 kg contains 2e21 proteins, each with about 1000 amino acids. So the energy to dissolve one kg of protein will be 333 kJ. A 70 kg body is 67% water, and 75% of the dry weight is protein = 35 kg. So to liquefy a person you need around 12 MJ. (that energy will of course end up as heat - a rapid disassembler will also tend to boil you) Assuming a 40 MJ/kg nanofuel in the disassembler swarm, this gives 1 g of protein disassembler bullet (40 kJ) the ability to munch up 120 gram of protein. Or, assuming the above dry weight thing, about 266 g of body. Ouch. That is a decent chunk. Still not total disintegration, but given that the disassemblers will no doubt be carried around in the bloodstream and poke holes in lots of places (in the heart, in the liver, in the brain...) it is a nasty weapon. Summing up, here is my take on how I would handle it ruleswise: the nanoswarm subtracts its DUR from the victim's DUR until it runs out. Say 1d10 points per round or so. Processes that remove it - nanodefenses, bleeding, cutting off infected limbs, can reduce the swarm DUR before it does more damage. Fast nanoswarms might do more damage per round but have less overall DUR for damage purposes (since they tend to cauterize their environment), while slow and insidious nanoswarms may be slower but have larger DUR (since they only break down particular choice molecules, like DNA or ribosomes).
So, over to the OP question:
NewtonPulsifer wrote:
If I programmed them to break down my 250 gram filet mignon, do they just dice it into very small pieces like a bunch of tiny army ants?
That would likely be the most effective method, since it would not need to break all molecular bonds - just the bonds along the cutting planes. The real problem is coordination: how do they keep track of where the cutting is supposed to happen, given that long-range nanocommunications is tricky? Army ants might actually give an idea: you just use local behaviors and local interactions to give the swarm the right behavior. However, there is a big question mark about generic disassemblers: the method that works on filet mignon might not be optimal for a gun or a rock.
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On that note, shouldn't it be a lot harder to disassemble a 250 gram diamond? As in probably impossible? I don't see how they could contain enough energy within themselves to achieve this feat.
Actually, diamond is a pretty energetic material. If you can pry lose a carbon atom and oxidise it with two oxygen atoms from the surrounding air you get an energy surplus. The problem is breaking the diamond bonds: a diamondoid nanomachine will have a tough time doing it for obvious reasons. I can't recall seeing anything similar to the Freitas and Merkle analysis of diamond assembly that deals with how you could pick apart diamonds. I wouldn't be surprised that it can be done using clever tooltips, but I suspect the efficiency will be far lower than disassembling weaker stuff.
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I'm thinking in my EP universe of reducing the abilities of disassembler swarms quite a bit unless they're eating something that can provide energy for their use.
Sounds like a good house rule. I use something similar. There is the mild exception above with swarms loaded with extra energy, but it doesn't last that long.
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Extropian
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Thu, 2012-07-26 12:38
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
My house rule is they get
My house rule is they get their power from a separate "wand", which uses wireless energy transfer. That also gives you very fine control over how you're disassembling the object, since the swarm follows the energy fields.
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Thu, 2012-07-26 22:21
OpsCon OpsCon's picture
That's kinda brilliant
That's kinda brilliant actually, and also acts as a failsafe...
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KT Alex 'Iceshade' Andrade [img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo6_r1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo1_400.jpg[/img] [img]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m65pmc5Pvh1r0iehwo2_400.jpg[/img]
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Fri, 2012-07-27 06:29
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
External power can be quite
External power can be quite useful. Freitas has some detailed analysis of the use of ultrasound to control and power nanomachines: that might be how the wand works. (It is tough to use electromagnetism to power nanites since their antennas are so small - signals have to be in the visible spectrum to be short enough)
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Extropian
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Fri, 2012-07-27 11:48
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Look, it's not the size of
Look, it's not the size of the antenna that matters, it's ... Oh wait, yeah, it totally is. Ultrasound works then :)
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Tue, 2012-07-31 08:14
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
I had a chat with Eric
I had a chat with Eric Drexler, and I asked him about diamond disassembly. He agreed that it would *likely* be tough for nanomachines: ripping loose a fully bonded carbon atom is hard if you have to use a device made of equal strength bonds do it. However, it all depends on whether one can do reversible diamond synthesis: if you can put diamond together without getting an exothermic snap as the carbon atoms slip into place, then you can reverse the process. We do not know if this can be done or not: it has to be investigated. Some other carbon structures are much nicer in this regard: sp2 bonds can apparently be rolled up very easily. So I think a generic disassembly swarm will definitely remove some materials more than others (and might even feed on them, depending on design). He also showed me a very cool argument that nanoassembly can be done without using a lot of force (i.e. using less power for the whole nanoassembly process). The standard approach in his Nanosystems is to have a totally rigid arm forcing molecules into the right positions, with no wriggle room. Easy to analyse, but maybe tough to build (and costly, energy wise). However, by using an ingenious counter-flow assembly line you can get parts assembled even if the energy difference is pretty small: it allows thermal noise to do a great deal of work (the trick is not to have reactions happen randomly, but to have them happen in such a way that you get a near-perfect result all the time). I guess it is going to be published in his upcoming book.
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Extropian
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Sat, 2012-08-04 18:22
athanasius athanasius's picture
disassembling energy
the disassembly of something is very easy compared to construction, evry atom can combine with his kind and a lot of this event release energy. i tink there are some problems: -thermal issure: disassembling release a lot of thermal, the nano can cook if insufficent cooling -frequency of operation: the ultimate limit in ideal condition is the number of atom manipulated for second, multiply this by number of disassembler and know the rate of operation -grey goo: nano must have a strong and redoundant failsafe programming for not disassemble evrithing, the simplest way is limit the number of operation before stop, then requied external restart imput -enrgy conservation: utilizing a good strategy is possible to construct chain of redox reaction for recharge nano during operation but efficency of conversion and storage of energy are critical militarized variants can be obtained combining different strategy for overcome problems and optimization, the principal concearn is the gray goo scenario, if you have a single nano that can "live of the land" and disassemble everithing this can be considered a megarust virus. I see nano as very poor weapons: need control, can be countered easily, take time to act and are PR nightmere..
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Sun, 2012-08-05 05:07
Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture
athanasius wrote:the
athanasius wrote:
the disassembly of something is very easy compared to construction, evry atom can combine with his kind and a lot of this event release energy.
Not really. Diamond has more energy than graphite, but getting it to convert or turning it into free carbon takes a lot of energy on the nano-scale. Making it (if you can place atoms with nano-precision) on the other hand is like snapping lego pieces together. In general disassembly through adding lots of energy is easy, but it also requires an external energy source and damages things nearby. Not very good if you want to disassemble invading nanites in a body.
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-grey goo: nano must have a strong and redoundant failsafe programming for not disassemble evrithing, the simplest way is limit the number of operation before stop, then requied external restart imput
Energy constraints. Disassemblers, as I have repeated pointed out, need to carry with them their energy or get it in their environment. But most environments are fairly energy-poor. Most of the solar system is fully oxidized regolith.
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I see nano as very poor weapons: need control, can be countered easily, take time to act and are PR nightmere..
Freely replicating nano is a bad weapon, but that is like trying to kill the enemy by throwing a truckload of scalpels at him. One scalpel, applied in the right place, is enough. But that requires control, information and planning. Sabotage nano likely killed more people than disassemblers during the fall.
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Extropian
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Sun, 2012-08-05 08:14
athanasius athanasius's picture
Quote: Energy constraints.
Quote:
Energy constraints. Disassemblers, as I have repeated pointed out, need to carry with them their energy or get it in their environment. But most environments are fairly energy-poor. Most of the solar system is fully oxidized regolith.
I agree with your assumption if we use free space as reference ambient and think abouth a resource gatherihg disassember, man made things are naturally unoxidized and composed of different elements arranged in hy energy state. We can distinguish between pure dissassembly and disasssembling phase of an assembly process, in hte first case we want only move abouth athoms for maximize their entropic state ("burning" them for ash) and in the second case we can selectivly rearrange the structure of exixting molecule toward a goal. Mining operation are a process of disassembly-assembly, we free atomic elements and rearrange them in a pure element lattice.... The efficency of the process can vary and final energy balance - waste energy is the total energy of the process (the process can be considered as a chemical redox).
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Not really. Diamond has more energy than graphite, but getting it to convert or turning it into free carbon takes a lot of energy on the nano-scale. Making it (if you can place atoms with nano-precision) on the other hand is like snapping lego pieces together.
The problem of assembly is similar, we can consider a nano as a strange tipe of enzime, evry process is incredibly energy efficient but limited bi normal chemical limits: evry reaction have an energy balance an you must pay or gain the energy balance. What make nano useful is the possibility of control in positioning that is impossible with normal chemical process, not the subversion of chemical limits. The speed of evry process in nano world is: the chemical speed of cathalized reaction + time to get resource + energy concearns. Evry nanoprocess must be considered a theam effort between milions of different entity like a society working for a goal, the number of workforce speed process but normal phisical laws still apply. As GM i reserve quantum effect masterig for TITAN or ETI, this field overcome evry limit and can speed evry process without energy limitation, utilizing chaos detrminism effects througt strange actractors effects and similar speculative tech. For truely amazing effect we can even consider Planck scale machine and monopoles engeneeringfor total matter control as suggested for TITANs artifacts but it's a bit OT..
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