Re: Nanotubes as Tiny Bar-Magnets

On 30 Nov 2003 07:37:16 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (erincss) wrote:

>
>>John Larkin
>
>> This leads me to suspect (horrors!) that most nanotech
>>discoveries are there for commercial hype, not for scientific advance.
>
>Take a look at this: 
>http://focus.aps.org/story/v8/st27
>
>Do you consider these nearly magical (compared to inferior crap materials like
>carbon steel and concrete and plastic) carbon-nitrogen buckyball/tubes to be
>hype? Once these can be mass-assembled , they can make current materials used
>for construction totally obsolete.
>



Until somebody finds a practical use for them, I consider them
useless; that's logical, isn't it? As the article points out,
fullerenes are now into their second decade of hype.

To return to my theme, this article ends with the stock wild
speculations, including the incomprehensible claim of utility as
"semiconductors in flat-panel displays." At least nobody mentioned
curing cancer here.

Steel, concrete, and plastic "totally obsolete"? You can't be serious.
Will the next Hoover Dam be built a molecule at a time?

John