X-Message-Number: 21071 Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 08:31:51 -0500 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #20820 - #20827 Hi again (yes, this is in a sense a late reply): For Bob Ettinger and Kennita Watson: Yes, devices with nanosized parts would certainly play a role in our repair. But when you bring in a computer (even if it too is made with nanosized parts) then you are no longer operating on a nanoscale. You are really talking about a repair device which uses nanosized parts. It is the same with "nano-macro". We should not forget that we are REPAIRING something for which the correct structure is not known. To find that correct structure the nanodevices examining it must somehow join together to get a complete view of where everything is, and then a computer (which might even be composed of many of these same nanodevices linked together) would work out where everything SHOULD be as distinct from where it IS. As I said when I began my discussion, I'm not talking about the problem of putting together something when we know where all its parts should go. I'm talking about the problem of putting together something which is broken for which we don't know where the parts go. The first problem could be done with independent nanosized devices; the second cannot. We can fool ourselves by deciding that everything can be done on a molecular level. Only in the root sense that we are all composed of molecules (as are our machines) is this true. Any repair machine will not consist simply of a set of nanomachines; they must be linked together and so form a much larger device. Best wishes and long long life to all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21071