The holy grail of nano technology, assemble structures from the atom up!!!

[Gardamorg]

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[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

I've given it some thought and I can see a way nano tech might be able to make metal objects with a lot less mass but even stronger than current metals are.

Until someone has actually assembled at least a fine (at least a few hundred atoms in cross-section diameter) metal wire using Drexlarian nano-assembly techniques, and its strength tested, the strength of such materials remains a tenuous maybe to me.

Put into ordinary blacksmith terms, atom-at-a-time nano-assembly is a annealing/tempering technique, arranging the crystalline structure of the metal to produce desired characteristics. Traditional techniques rely on metals’ “self assembly” characteristics. Heated and cooled slowly, the structure is more amorphous, so is weaker but more ductable/malleable/flexible. Heated and cooled quickly (“quenched”), the crystalline faces are more aligned, so the piece is stronger, but more brittle. The blacksmith’s art comes in large part from the need of a typical metal piece to be hard and brittle in some places (eg: a contact surface or sharp edge), and soft and malleable in others (eg: the core), resulting in a piece that wears well and doesn’t break.

In principle, a nano-machine could do this exactly, according to a “blueprint” derived from a precise simulation of the performance requirements of the piece. My uncertainty comes from not knowing how close to ideal ordinary metalworking techniques are. If they’re close, a “perfect” piece assembled nano-mechanically might be only slightly better than an ordinary piece. If they’re far from ideal, it might be much better.

As I noted above, however, I don’t think this much matters, as the only reason we traditionally use metals is because of their self-assembly characteristics. Heat ore, collect the molten metal, skim it, pour it into a mold then work the resulting piece in various ways, and you get a useful tool or structural material. Try this approach with carbon, and you don’t get wonderful fullerene fibers or diamond super-building material, but crumbly ash. Even if you can coax a non-metal into one of these crystalline forms, you can’t stamp, role, or hammer it into marvelous structures like the ones linked from modest’s post.

The greatest promise of nanotech seems to me to be not in improving the fabrication of present-day materials, but allowing the fabrication of materials presently impossible.

Discussion of how to actually do this is what puts technologists like Drexler and Smalley at odds bordering on animosity (the 10/2004 Wired article “The Incredible Shrinking Man” gives a good perspective on this). In short, Drexlerians envision it being done by swarms of autonomous nanobots, while “conservative” nanotechnologists assume that more traditional self-organizing material characteristics and “bulk” fabricating techniques will continue to be needed. In between these extremes are various mixtures of the two, constituting, I think, the “mainstream”. I imagine myself a spectator in the mainstream’s cheering section.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Has any ever given any thought to how Styrofoam can be so light and yet so strong?

As structural materials go, polystyrene foam isn’t very strong, though it can be pretty light. It’s mostly useful for insulation and floatation.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Melt Styrofoam down and you get a thin sheet of very weak plastic.

If you can manager to get all the dirt and bubbles out of it, melted Styrofoam is the same stuff as the high impact polystyrene used in injection and vacuum molded parts. These parts can be thin or thick, and fairly strong - 46-60 N/m^2 tensile strength, about 1/4th the strength of cast iron, 1/10th that of machine steel. (sources: wikikedia articles “Polystyrene and “Tensile strength”.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

All you have to do is make metal foam!

According to its wikipedia article, metal foam’s strength decreases as its density decreases. This agrees with my experience with a block of aluminum foam. You could dent it with bare hands (it was covered in handprints), and it floated . Despite this lack of tensile strength, the wiki mentions that, in addition to a useful controlled-crumble impact-absorbing material, foamed metal can be, but hasn’t widely been used as a structural material (presumably for stiffening, not compressive or tensile strength).

I’m pretty sure that even if precisely assembled my nano-machines, metal foam would have about the same tensile strength as a solid part if equal cross-section area, so would be only slightly more useful due to increased off-axis stiffness, and less useful due to the need to be sheathed and capped to avoid crushing.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Of course metal foams have to be made in a very low gee environment, orbit in other words

I’m pretty certain that metal foams are currently made under ordinary, 1 gee conditions.

Originally Posted by Moontanman

An ounce of something like aluminum or titanium could make a very large object if it was made into foam.

The wikipedia article says that typically 75-95% of the volume of a metal foam is the gas used to foam it. Since the length-to-volume relationship is , a typical metal foam object would be 1.6 to 2.7 times as tall as a solid one of the same mass – significantly larger, but not IMHO amazingly so.

By comparison, the Statue of Liberty, which consists of a thin copper skin over a steel frame, is about 97.5% empty space. It masses about the same that it would if it had been molded as a solid piece of foamed copper - though according to this “brief history of metal foams”, the best I’ve found on the internet, the first metal foams weren’t made until the late 1940s, and really good methods not found until the late 1950s through mid 1960s, so there’s not possibility that the 1880s statue could have been made that way, even had someone wanted to.

Return to the old “end of the metal age” theme, we can note that various science fiction writers have imagined that nanotech might produce foam-like materials much less dense than metal foams, so low-density that they’d actually be less dense than air. This could make for a waste-disposal nightmare, as rather than settling to the ground to be degraded like ordinary ash, dead nanomachines might float nearly forever at an altitude where their density matched that of air, producing a global “nano-smog” layer.

We don’t need to worry about this happening with metal foams. For aluminum, density to be lighter than sea-level air, density , it would have to be over a hundred times “foamier” than a 95% foam.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Until someone has actually assembled at least a fine (at least a few hundred atoms in cross-section diameter) metal wire using Drexlarian nano-assembly techniques, and its strength tested, the strength of such materials remains a tenuous maybe to me.

Put into ordinary blacksmith terms, atom-at-a-time nano-assembly is a annealing/tempering technique, arranging the crystalline structure of the metal to produce desired characteristics. Traditional techniques rely on metals’ “self assembly” characteristics. Heated and cooled slowly, the structure is more amorphous, so is weaker but more ductable/malleable/flexible. Heated and cooled quickly (“quenched”), the crystalline faces are more aligned, so the piece is stronger, but more brittle. The blacksmith’s art comes in large part from the need of a typical metal piece to be hard and brittle in some places (eg: a contact surface or sharp edge), and soft and malleable in others (eg: the core), resulting in a piece that wears well and doesn’t break.

In principle, a nano-machine could do this exactly, according to a “blueprint” derived from a precise simulation of the performance requirements of the piece. My uncertainty comes from not knowing how close to ideal ordinary metalworking techniques are. If they’re close, a “perfect” piece assembled nano-mechanically might be only slightly better than an ordinary piece. If they’re far from ideal, it might be much better.

As I noted above, however, I don’t think this much matters, as the only reason we traditionally use metals is because of their self-assembly characteristics. Heat ore, collect the molten metal, skim it, pour it into a mold then work the resulting piece in various ways, and you get a useful tool or structural material. Try this approach with carbon, and you don’t get wonderful fullerene fibers or diamond super-building material, but crumbly ash. Even if you can coax a non-metal into one of these crystalline forms, you can’t stamp, role, or hammer it into marvelous structures like the ones linked from modest’s post.

The greatest promise of nanotech seems to me to be not in improving the fabrication of present-day materials, but allowing the fabrication of materials presently impossible.

Discussion of how to actually do this is what puts technologists like Drexler and Smalley at odds bordering on animosity (the 10/2004 Wired article “The Incredible Shrinking Man” gives a good perspective on this). In short, Drexlerians envision it being done by swarms of autonomous nanobots, while “conservative” nanotechnologists assume that more traditional self-organizing material characteristics and “bulk” fabricating techniques will continue to be needed. In between these extremes are various mixtures of the two, constituting, I think, the “mainstream”. I imagine myself a spectator in the mainstream’s cheering section. As structural materials go, polystyrene foam isn’t very strong, though it can be pretty light. It’s mostly useful for insulation and floatation.If you can manager to get all the dirt and bubbles out of it, melted Styrofoam is the same stuff as the high impact polystyrene used in injection and vacuum molded parts. These parts can be thin or thick, and fairly strong - 46-60 N/m^2 tensile strength, about 1/4th the strength of cast iron, 1/10th that of machine steel. (sources: wikikedia articles “Polystyrene and “Tensile strength”.According to its wikipedia article, metal foam’s strength decreases as its density decreases. This agrees with my experience with a block of aluminum foam. You could dent it with bare hands (it was covered in handprints), and it floated . Despite this lack of tensile strength, the wiki mentions that, in addition to a useful controlled-crumble impact-absorbing material, foamed metal can be, but hasn’t widely been used as a structural material (presumably for stiffening, not compressive or tensile strength).

I’m pretty sure that even if precisely assembled my nano-machines, metal foam would have about the same tensile strength as a solid part if equal cross-section area, so would be only slightly more useful due to increased off-axis stiffness, and less useful due to the need to be sheathed and capped to avoid crushing.I’m pretty certain that metal foams are currently made under ordinary, 1 gee conditions.The wikipedia article says that typically 75-95% of the volume of a metal foam is the gas used to foam it. Since the length-to-volume relationship is , a typical metal foam object would be 1.6 to 2.7 times as tall as a solid one of the same mass – significantly larger, but not IMHO amazingly so.

By comparison, the Statue of Liberty, which consists of a thin copper skin over a steel frame, is about 97.5% empty space. It masses about the same that it would if it had been molded as a solid piece of foamed copper - though according to this “brief history of metal foams”, the best I’ve found on the internet, the first metal foams weren’t made until the late 1940s, and really good methods not found until the late 1950s through mid 1960s, so there’s not possibility that the 1880s statue could have been made that way, even had someone wanted to.

Return to the old “end of the metal age” theme, we can note that various science fiction writers have imagined that nanotech might produce foam-like materials much less dense than metal foams, so low-density that they’d actually be less dense than air. This could make for a waste-disposal nightmare, as rather than settling to the ground to be degraded like ordinary ash, dead nanomachines might float nearly forever at an altitude where their density matched that of air, producing a global “nano-smog” layer.

We don’t need to worry about this happening with metal foams. For aluminum, density to be lighter than sea-level air, density , it would have to be over a hundred times “foamier” than a 95% foam.

Oh well, so much for my metal foam thread, I must be operating on old info, I thought the idea of a metal foam I-beam, light as balsa wood and strong as steel was not only possible but a great idea I guess my idea is just not possible.

[Gardamorg]

Originally Posted by Me

If we could manipulate the structures of atoms, and piece together neutrons and protons, and quarks, then we could change the density and all and all strength of materials themselves by literally building at the subatomic level, building from the particle up.

What I am talking about is an atom that looks like a nano tube, and a bunch of these atoms might make up a super duper strong nano tube, stronger than a nano tube made just from regular atoms. Which means you could make it lighter and stronger than you ever could with plain atomic manipulation. Structured atoms that are like supports that make up a nano support, and nano supports could be the nano tubes that make up a metal.

If nano bots could shoot small electromagnetic charges that are unstable and explode a after they've been created, and make them stable enough to last long enough to hit and explode in the perfect spot on a subatomic particle to actually move it in a certain direction, and then fire many more to actually propel sub atomic particles into a structure with the thrust from the specific impulse of these little nuclear pulses, then we could build atoms with specific structures in the way I'm proposing by propelling them toward each other.

It would be like positioning chunks of metal with kinetic explosions.

This process could make titanium a thousand times lighter.

Would this work???

[modest]

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

Would this work???

Yes, we can change the structure of an atom by adding a subatomic particle and turning it into a different atom. No, we cannot move around or reposition the subatomic particles in an atom to change its size, structure, density, etc.

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

If we could manipulate the structures of atoms, and piece together neutrons and protons, and quarks, then we could change the density and all and all strength of materials themselves.

If you add or subtract nucleons (protons and neutrons) to an atom you can change its properties including mass, density, nuclear stability, melting point, color, etc. This is called nuclear transmutation.

For example, if we had an atom with 78 protons and 118 neutrons in its nucleus we would call it platinum which is a grayish white metal which turns from liquid to solid at 1768 degrees Celsius and has a density when solid of 21.45 grams per cubic centimeter. This atom is written (the number 196 represents protons and neutrons)

One way to change this atom is to add a proton (as you say "piece together neutrons and protons"). If we add a proton we would have 79 protons and 118 neutrons which is gold-197, written . Now we have a bright yellow metal that turns from liquid to solid at 1064 degrees Celsius and a solid density of 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter.

This is not exactly what you describe above, but it's the closest thing I know of to what you're asking -- nuclear transmutation it's called. It is adding and subtracting bits and pieces to the nucleus of an atom. It happens naturally in the universe where nucleons in the sun will fuse together turning hydrogen into helium or where nucleons pop out of a decaying and unstable isotope here on earth such as radon-222 turning into polonium-218.

Scientists have also accomplished transmutation artificially using particle accelerators or nuclear bombs/reactors. Unfortunately, changing the composition of the nucleus of an atom requires very large amounts of energy.

I believe there are some serious misunderstandings here:

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

If nano bots could shoot small atom sized nuclear pulses that are pretty much timed explosions, and program them to hit and explode in the perfect spot on a subatomic particle to actually move it in a certain direction, and then fire many more to actually propel protons, neutrons and quarks into a structure with the thrust from the specific impulse of these little nuclear pulses, then we could build atoms with specific structures in the way I'm proposing by propelling them toward each other.

It would be like positioning chunks of metal with kinetic explosions.

First off, the amount of energy required to add a proton to the nucleus of an atom is quite simply too large for nanobots to accomplish. There are two forces involved. Getting a proton near the nucleus of an atom requires overcoming the electrostatic force that repels like-charged particles. Two protons don't want to be pushed together. They have the same charge and they'll resist. If you overcome this (using a particle accelerator or nuclear bomb or the heat and pressure of a star) and get the proton close enough to the nucleus then the nuclear force (which has a shorter range) will grab the proton and keep it in the nucleus.

You seem to be thinking of these nanobots as being capable of putting electrons or nucleons at discretionary places and making different kinds of atoms. Atoms are simply not like that. Subatomic particles are waves. They don't hold still and it's impossible for a nanobot to know both where they are and where they're going at the same time.

Nanobots can't decide what distance subatomic particles are from one another or shoot particles into some arbitrary position. The atom is going to do what it wants to do following electrostatic and nuclear forces along with the uncertainty principle. Most people think of an atom somewhat like a solar system:



But this is not correct. When you think in terms of waves that can't be contained or pinned down at the atomic scale, it's more like:



So, nanobots could not accomplish what you're thinking. As far as I know, the best of our ability is fision or fusion changing one atom or isotope into another - something that nanobots wouldn't be good at because it takes a lot of energy rather than precision.

~modest

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

If we could manipulate the structures of atoms, and piece together neutrons and protons, and quarks, then we could change the density and all and all strength of materials themselves by literally building at the subatomic level, building from the particle up. …

If we could manipulate the structure of atoms – one might say create “designer elements” - these possibilities would be open. However, the last 50 years or so of nuclear physics tells us we can’t, whether we use the usual tools of particle accelerators, or future ones like nano-assemblers.

The idea of creating designer elements – called such things as “superheavies”, because they were usually imagined as having very high atomic masses – was a hot idea in the science fiction of the 1950s. Nuclear chemists, it was imagined, would dream up new metal alloys of totally synthetic elements on nearly a daily basis, resulting in increasingly nearly indestructible materials that could benefit mankind or make terrible weapons of war.

However, as folk like Glenn Seaborg (shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) developed the discipline that came to be known as nuclear chemistry, it became clear that the laws of nature restrict the possible isotopes with life spans of more than a few seconds to a narrow range, leading to a well-confirmed, intuitively strong, and quantum mechanically reconcilable island of stability hypothesis. Later work by folk like Steven Weinberg (shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics) on what came to be known as the Standard Model of particle physics made clear that the interactions underlying these laws were so short range that, other than via intense gravity, there’s no way around them – designer elements as described in 1950s science fiction are simply impossible.

Building atoms not found in nature with wonderful and useful properties is an old and good idea that nature simply refuses to permit.

[Gardamorg]

Originally Posted by modest

If you add or subtract nucleons (protons and neutrons) to an atom you can change its properties including mass, density, nuclear stability, melting point, color, etc. This is called nuclear transmutation.

That's what I mean, a structure or support is deferent subatomically than atomically, sub atomically it's what you describe, and that's what I was proposing, adding to the atom to change it's properties, or transmute it. An atom can fortify/support a material's atomic structure by making it flexible as opposed to brittle.

Scientists have also accomplished transmutation artificially using particle accelerators or nuclear bombs/reactors. Unfortunately, changing the composition of the nucleus of an atom requires very large amounts of energy.

I believe there are some serious misunderstandings here:



First off, the amount of energy required to add a proton to the nucleus of an atom is quite simply too large for nanobots to accomplish. There are two forces involved. Getting a proton near the nucleus of an atom requires overcoming the electrostatic force that repels like-charged particles. Two protons don't want to be pushed together. They have the same charge and they'll resist. If you overcome this (using a particle accelerator or nuclear bomb or the heat and pressure of a star) and get the proton close enough to the nucleus then the nuclear force (which has a shorter range) will grab the proton and keep it in the nucleus.

The giga-atomic nano bot will constantly fire one of these unstable subatomic electromagnetic charges after another, being refueled by trillions of other nano bots. Each simultaneous explosion will go off before the proton's charge can react, it's this constant and unrelenting bombardment of kinetic explosions that prevent the proton from traveling back to where ever the positive charge wants them at, and eventually make the nuclear force grab the proton...

You seem to be thinking of these nanobots as being capable of putting electrons or nucleons at discretionary places and making different kinds of atoms. Atoms are simply not like that. Subatomic particles are waves. They don't hold still and it's impossible for a nanobot to know both where they are and where they're going at the same time.

Nanobots can't decide what distance subatomic particles are from one another or shoot particles into some arbitrary position. The atom is going to do what it wants to do following electrostatic and nuclear forces along with the uncertainty principle.

If the nano bots have such a magnitude of artificial intelligence that they are capable of reacting to change, and reasoning, they could eventually position it into the right spot through process of elimination.

Blind people do this everyday.

The nano bots might not be able to predict where it's at one point in time, but they can continually and constantly eliminate the spaces that their not occupying, and move into the only ones they could be.

So, nanobots could not accomplish what you're thinking. As far as I know, the best of our ability is fision or fusion changing one atom or isotope into another - something that nanobots wouldn't be good at because it takes a lot of energy rather than precision.

~modest

Smart enough robots could combine perceptive human reasoning with perfect mechanical precision.

[modest]

First let me apologize. Rereading my post above just revealed to me how completely incoherent it is. I was multitasking while I wrote it and it shows. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

That's what I mean, a structure or support is deferent subatomically than atomically, sub atomically it's what you describe, and that's what I was proposing, adding to the atom to change it's properties, or transmute it. An atom can fortify/support a material's atomic structure by making it flexible as opposed to brittle.

An atom is the same thing as an element (for the purposes of our discussion). Hydrogen is the first element. It has one proton. Helium is the second element and it has two protons. A proton is a subatomic particle. It is possible to turn hydrogen into helium by fusing two hydrogen atoms together... basically adding a proton to hydrogen atom. This is, in fact, what a thermonuclear weapon does.

Hydrogen has different properties from helium. This is why I said above that it is possible to change the structure of an atom and get an element with different properties. However, this method (nuclear transmutation) can only change one element like hydrogen into another element like helium. It doesn't let you design new elements. You can't make 'different hydrogen' or 'different oxygen', you can only make helium or iron or some other atomic element that's already on the periodic table.

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

The giga-atomic nano bot will constantly fire one of these unstable subatomic electromagnetic charges after another,

I hope you don't mean for your giga-atomic-nano-bot to be as small as an atom. What would it be made of?

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

being refueled by trillions of other nano bots.

As long as we're playing around in the watercooler, I'll ask... why would you have one robot firing something and a trillion others refueling it? Why wouldn't you rather just have all trillion fire at once?

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

Each simultaneous explosion will go off before the proton's charge can react, it's this constant and unrelenting bombardment of kinetic explosions that prevent the proton from traveling back to where ever the positive charge wants them at, and eventually make the nuclear force grab the proton...

That's a very colorful description of a nanotechnology particle accelerator. What exactly are they firing?

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

If the nano bots have such a magnitude of artificial intelligence that they are capable of reacting to change, and reasoning, they could eventually position it into the right spot through process of elimination.

Blind people do this everyday.

What blind people don't do every day is try and locate and move around subatomic particles at will. The reason I brought this up is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which says that small things become uncertain. It is impossible to know exactly where a subatomic particle is and also know exactly its momentum. These are weird quantum effects that I tried unsuccessfully to describe a bit in my last post. They would make precision moving of a subatomic particle a game of chance.

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

The nano bots might not be able to predict where it's at one point in time, but they can continually and constantly eliminate the spaces that their not occupying, and move into the only ones they could be.

An electron (for example) is a point. It has no size - it's just a point of energy. It is always moving and you're never going to be able to predict where it will be. Messing around with an atom isn't like building legos. Even for a super-giga-nano-bot. Think of all the radio waves going around the earth. That is like electrons going around an atom. It's not so easy to go out into space and grab a radio wave and put it somewhere else... especially if it were impossible to be able to predict exactly where it will be.

Originally Posted by Gardamorg

Smart enough robots could combine perceptive human reasoning with perfect mechanical precision.

I think the main point and probably the only important point is that we know of no way to create new "designer" elements out of subatomic particles. It would seem we are stuck with what's on the periodic table. If indeed you're only talking about going from one element to another (from one normal atom to another normal atom) then I'm ok with that. I'm certainly not ok with the incredible properties we've given your nanobots. But, fission and fusion and transmutation as I've described above--the universe allows that to happen for sure.

~modest

[Gardamorg]

Originally Posted by modest

First let me apologize. Rereading my post above just revealed to me how completely incoherent it is. I was multitasking while I wrote it and it shows. Sorry.

It was coherent, it just wasn't that spicey choice of words which I often perform, not meaning to brag or anything.

An atom is the same thing as an element (for the purposes of our discussion). Hydrogen is the first element. It has one proton. Helium is the second element and it has two protons. A proton is a subatomic particle. It is possible to turn hydrogen into helium by fusing two hydrogen atoms together... basically adding a proton to hydrogen atom. This is, in fact, what a thermonuclear weapon does.

Hydrogen has different properties from helium. This is why I said above that it is possible to change the structure of an atom and get an element with different properties. However, this method (nuclear transmutation) can only change one element like hydrogen into another element like helium. It doesn't let you design new elements. You can't make 'different hydrogen' or 'different oxygen', you can only make helium or iron or some other atomic element that's already on the periodic table.

I learned this by questioning my teacher in 7th grade.

I hope you don't mean for your giga-atomic-nano-bot to be as small as an atom. What would it be made of?

As it's name suggests it's actually the size of a billion atoms.

As long as we're playing around in the watercooler, I'll ask... why would you have one robot firing something and a trillion others refueling it? Why wouldn't you rather just have all trillion fire at once?

Because there's only one firing in one particular direction.

But in order to by chance actually move the subatomic particle there are trillions of nano bots powering each single giga-atomic nano bot, and there is a single giga-atomic nano bot in practically every direction around the particle, this insures that just one of their unstable sub atomic electromagnetic charges hits the particle. This is done millions of times every few seconds using quintillion's of miniature nano bots.

That's a very colorful description of a nanotechnology particle accelerator. What exactly are they firing?

Except it's cheaper because the bots operate by themselves in a self sustained process, they take fuel from the matter around them, while they take the other subatomic particles from other matter.

They are firing my self proposed projectiles, unstable electromagnetic charges that are the size of subatomic particles, they are generated in a similar way to magnetic fields.

Their almost exactly like those pulse units that are ejected from the business end of a nuclear pulse rocket ship, except their made of photons, positively charged and negatively charged

What blind people don't do every day is try and locate and move around subatomic particles at will. The reason I brought this up is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which says that small things become uncertain. It is impossible to know exactly where a subatomic particle is and also know exactly its momentum. These are weird quantum effects that I tried unsuccessfully to describe a bit in my last post. They would make precision moving of a subatomic particle a game of chance.

There's a giga-atomic nano bot firing in almost every direction in the circumference of the supposed particle their trying to move, I'd say their chances are pretty good.

I think the main point and probably the only important point is that we know of no way to create new "designer" elements out of subatomic particles. It would seem we are stuck with what's on the periodic table. If indeed you're only talking about going from one element to another (from one normal atom to another normal atom) then I'm ok with that. I'm certainly not ok with the incredible properties we've given your nanobots. But, fission and fusion and transmutation as I've described above--the universe allows that to happen for sure.

~modest

The atoms are built to fit any need we so posses.

All of the nano bots essentially have one mind, and each one talks to every one, and everyone talks to each one.