WEBVTT - The Big Deal About Small Stuff 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.240 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.800 Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.160 the podcast and makes the future, and says I turned 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.640 my back for two minutes and they've grown again. I'm 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.640 Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Pocalban, and I'm Joe McCormick. And uh, 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:25.439 you know, guys, I don't want to make a big 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:29.440 deal about this. I know it's a small thing, but 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:36.800 nano scale, am I right? Was wonderful? Man? That that 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.440 noise that Joe just made. If anyone's ever ever heard 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:44.680 me shaking my head, and that's exactly yeah. Okay, well 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:46.720 we're glad you put a voice to it. Sorry, anyway, 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:51.280 go ahead. I wanted to talk to thought today about honestly, 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:53.360 come on, I'm trying to get it out now. I 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.680 wanted to talk today about the nano scale and and 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:01.000 why things that the nano scale are so special and unusual, 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.600 particularly when we think about how we're familiar with material 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.560 on the macro scale that's that's in our world in 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.160 amounts that we're able to see and pick up and 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.160 and manipulate. Yeah, So, if you are interested in the 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.120 future or have been within the past decade and a 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.080 half or so, you've probably heard a whole lot about nanotechnology, 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.080 but you might not necessarily know any of the principles 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.039 behind nanotechnology except that it has something to do with 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:32.280 extremely tiny robots that will turn the world into Google, right, 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.160 or will make us be able to resist make us superhero. 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:38.800 It's one of the one of the two. Really, it's 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.199 either Google or Awesome. Well, it's one of those things 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.600 that has been through a lot of hype, and there 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.880 has been a lot of It's sort of one of 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.880 those magic technologies and people just invoke it like a 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.360 magic spell to say that it can do anything. Yeah, 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.320 and a lot of media reports kind of simplify it 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.440 to the point where, uh, you know, you don't really 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.840 understand what they're talking about because it's it's so general 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.360 and vague, because you get the feeling that they don't 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:09.520 really understand what they're talking about. They're going, like science, y'all, 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.680 and that's yeah, it's like using a placeholder, you know, 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.280 just throw nanotechnology in there and everything will be fine. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.920 But it's it's uh, it is fascinating, it is and 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:19.880 it's a true industry. It's not like we're not trying 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.000 to downplay this, and so nanotechnology isn't a thing. It's 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.480 totally a thing. It's a true industry, and it's an 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.639 industry that's really trying to happen, especially if you've read 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.120 about any of the huge sort of patent rush that's 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.400 been going on over the previous years in nanotechnology. People 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:41.280 are taking out so many patents on ideas for nanotechnology, 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.200 you know, devices that they have no way of making 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.240 function right now, some of which they might have at 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.959 least a way of approaching it. But yeah, that well, 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.400 there's so many patents it's possible to see this as 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.400 an impediment to actual work getting done in the field. 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.080 I will say that, you know, everyone who's listening to 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.080 this is likely doing so on a device that is 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:05.600 incorporating nanotechnology because at this at this stage, microprocessors have 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.120 transistors and other elements that are on the nanoscale. So 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.120 these are things that have been made to such a 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:17.000 a precise degree that it's it's super super tiny, tinier 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.200 than we can see using a light microscope. Jonathan, Yeah, 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.960 super super tiny. Come on, let's use some real terms here. 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:26.520 Let's back up and say what the heck is the 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.560 nano scale, and why should we care about it? Right? So, 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:34.560 a nanometer is one billionth of a meter, so that 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:39.040 that's very difficult to have rightly. Put you this way, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.760 all right, your typical sheet of paper, just a sheet 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:44.240 of paper, a single sheet of paper is about one 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:49.080 hundred thousand nanometers thick. So that edge of a sheet 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:50.880 of paper that can give you that nasty paper cut 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.080 that's actually enormous. On the nano scale, red blood cell 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:58.200 would be two thousand, five hundred nanometers across. So you know, 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.000 there's there's the micro scale, which is the scale large, 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.840 one scale larger than the nano scale, uh, which you 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:07.080 know at that level we can look at stuff using 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.600 light microscopes. But the nanoscale we're actually talking about things 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.880 typically we're we're talking about stuff that's around a hundred nanometers, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.240 are smaller in size. I mean, you're kind of it's 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.720 it's not exact. There's not like a cutoff where you say, oh, no, 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.040 I'm sorry, that's not nano scale, it's microscale unless you're 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.440 talking about a thousand nanometers. In that point you're like no, literally, um, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.000 but you know this is a size where things are 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.120 so small that light waves actually kind of hit on 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.320 either side, like the particles can fit in between, sort 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.200 of like how in science fiction you have those creatures 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.040 occasionally that are able to exist in between seconds, and 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.480 that's why we can't see them. But in this case, 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.359 it's stuff that's so small that light waves can't interact 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.000 with them. You don't see them using light. I think, uh, 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.240 correct me if I'm wrong, But I think one good 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.560 way of looking at it is it is it's sort 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.200 of at the molecular scale can be. It's uh, it's 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.240 larger than single app yes, right, a nanometer might be 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.400 about ten atoms together. Yeah, that's the atomic scale would 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.400 be the next smallest scale, and the nanoscale really is 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:13.000 the realm of the molecule. Okay. Yeah. So and also 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:15.919 while we're talking about this, while we talk about nanotechnology 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.640 and that sounds, you know very much humans have their 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.080 hand in it. We're the ones building this kind of stuff, 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.200 we should also stress that a lot of nanotechnology depends 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.839 very heavily on things that we already find in nature, 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.960 specifically stuff like viruses, which are on the nanoscale. These 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.720 viruses range in size, you know, that's not like it's 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:37.640 not one size fits all. But these are tiny, tiny, 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:42.400 tiny structures. Some would say organisms, some do not, because 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:44.960 virus is one of those tricky things. Is it, is 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.640 it life? Is it not life? Um, there's not full 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.640 agreement on the matter. But it is found in nature, 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:55.280 and in fact, nanotechnology has made great use of viruses, 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.440 both as a source of inspiration and actually as something 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:00.440 that we could use by scooping all all the virus 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.440 stuff out and replacing it with other stuff, keeping that 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.279 shell intact. Absolutely, DNA itself is on the nano scale. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.000 A particle of d N DNA might be about two 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.159 nanometers across, which is the size of a carbon nanotube. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.920 By the way, particles of smoke also on the nano scale. 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:18.479 So yeah, this is stuff that, uh is both in 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.520 nature and stuff that we will construct ourselves, we being 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.320 people way smarter than I am, not the three the 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.760 four people in this room. I will say I visited 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:33.080 a nano lab just last week in a high school 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.440 in Chicago. So high school had its own nano lab, 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.479 including scanning electron microscopes so that they could see the 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.960 stuff they were working on. I was blown away. In 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.520 my high school. In my high school, we had a 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:53.120 computer and it was an apple. Um, So anyway, the 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.440 interesting thing you asked me. Also, why is the nano 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.839 scale important? We've explained what it is, but why do 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:01.320 we care? Well, we care? Can you really do anything 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:05.840 useful down there that tiny, tiny range on? Well? Technically 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:07.840 right now, that's that's up for that's kind of up 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.160 for grabs. But you, Dennis Quaide and you're in this 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.680 this device that could be shrunk down to the nano scale. Uh, 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.960 and Martin short is nearby. Hey, first, let's say we 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.880 do have a lot to learn about the name, because 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.560 the nano scale is, as you might have understood if 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.679 you've ever studied, say, quantum physics, when you get down 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:35.280 to the very very small scale, things don't act like 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.840 you're used to exactly. On the nano scale, material that 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:43.520 you could be extremely familiar with will demonstrate properties that 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.160 are completely different from the ones you're accustomed to. Right. 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.120 For example, like color, okay, so so so gold we 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.760 call it gold. There's a color called gold because that 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:56.240 is the color that gold is. Yeah, exactly why we 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.720 call oranges oranges? Right, but so at at the at 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.120 the nano scale, gold has to be gold, right, No, 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.560 it does not have to be. Don't. You can't tell 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.040 gold how to be. You aren't the boss of gold. 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.680 Gold decides it wants to be purple. As it turns 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.120 out on the nano scale, particles of gold are actually red. 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.960 So it's still gold, you know, chemically, but it's it's 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.760 it's no longer the color gold. It is the color 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.280 red red or kind of purple. Yeah. And and this 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.440 happens to be a function of gold electrons being confined 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.679 at this scale, which means that the gold interacts with 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.480 light differently. And you can actually see this. If you 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:39.240 see gold nanoparticles that are suspended in solution, the solution 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.080 itself will appear to be read or slightly purplish and 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.880 not gold. So that's kind of interesting. Also, the melting 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.280 point of materials changes. A melting point that's where a 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.480 solid turns into a liquid, so gold using gold again 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:57.160 as an example. The melting point is typically on the 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.360 macro scale. So if you had a bar of gold 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.559 and you want to alt it down and be a 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.800 James Bond villain and melt somebody with it, then you 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.040 would need to heat that up to one thousand degrees 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:12.040 fahrenheit or one thousand sixty four degrees sels use, but 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.840 on the nanoscale it's actually lower. The melting point is 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.960 lower than that, and the actual melting point depends on 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.760 the size of the nanoparticle. So it's not just that 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.760 at a smaller size, these little particles will melt at 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.640 a lower temperature. It's all size dependent, and a lot 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.360 of that has to do with surface area, which will 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.640 get into a little bit later. Also, the hardness of 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.040 material can be different at the nanoscale than it is 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.920 on the macro scale. It's electrical conductivity. Some substances that 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.280 don't that aren't very good conductors on the macro scale 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:48.240 become excellent conductors of electricity on the nanoscale, and vice versa. 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.920 You'll find some things that end up acting more like 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.960 an insulator on the nanoscale than they do on the 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.760 macro scale. So knowing that, knowing that material has these 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.160 different properties at these different sizes, means that you can 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:04.320 take advantage of that and design electronics that leverage that. 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.680 Also the chemical reactivity. By the way, one thing that's 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:09.640 related to this that I didn't put on this list 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:14.640 is toxicity. So a material may or may not be 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.080 more or less toxic on the nanoscale than it is 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:22.000 on the macro scale. Similar Similarly, they will react differently 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.320 in chemical reactions on the nano scale than on the 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:25.920 macro scale. And again that has a lot to do 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.640 with surface area, which again I'll talk about in a minute. 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:35.199 Just calm down, I'm gonna get there. And then there's magnetoism. Magnetism, 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:37.679 It still has nothing to do with the x men. 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.800 I keep trying. I know it's a valiant effort, um. 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.240 But no nano particles of magnetic substances like like iron 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:48.000 oxide for example, can exert magnetic force on each other 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.200 when exposed to weak magnets just plain old handheld things, um. 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:56.400 Which means that that what we expect to happen is 0:10:56.440 --> 0:10:59.000 that we'd need a huge electro magnet to to move 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.520 magnetic nano particles. Um. But but if you just introduce 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.000 them to a really weak magnetic field, they'll start moving themselves. 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.840 And we'll talk a little bit about that again in 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.280 a minute. Because there are certain forces that are really 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.040 important on the nano scale, and other forces that, while 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.520 they're important to us on the macro scale, don't mean 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.439 a thing once you get down to a couple of nanometers. 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.520 Just doesn't doesn't even you know, it's a negligible effect. 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.679 And uh, Anyway, another important part is that the motion 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.480 of energy at the nano scale, this is kind of 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.080 falling into what you were saying, Joe. It follows the 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.840 rules of quantum physics rather than classical physics. So now 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.280 we're starting to see some quantum effects come into play. 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.000 And this is where stuff really behaves in a weird way, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.520 things that are not intuitive to us on the map. 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.800 Whether you're trying to use your intuitions or you're trying 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.840 to work it out with Newtonian equations, it's it's not 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.080 going to make sense at this scale. They're not going 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.520 to be able to predict movement by going going by 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.440 Newton's book. Now, there's a lot of uncertainty at the level, 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.160 which if you are able to take into account, means 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.640 that you can work your way around it. But if 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.320 you take some really interesting things exactly, but if you're 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.400 not able to take it into account, then you might 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.160 end up creating, say a microchip that is useless because 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.679 it cannot control the flow of electrons. And we'll get 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:21.120 into that as well. So now we've covered the different properties, 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:24.280 what about the things that are important or not important 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.560 at the scale that I you know, I just alluded 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.560 to it a minute ago. Well, service area, like I said, 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.520 way more important than it would be on the macro scale. 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.160 And specifically, the reason we say that is because the 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:38.760 surface area ends up the ratio of surface area to 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.000 volume is out of control. On the nano scale, you've 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.080 got way more surface area than you would have volume 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:47.120 because you're talking about teny T T teeny tiny nanoparticles 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:50.760 share a collection of nanoparticles as as you can imagine 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.240 very clearly. Probably it's it's like having a having a 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.680 whole bunch of blocks versus one large solid block of 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.440 the same volume. Yeah, and so this means that that 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:04.000 surface area that enormous relative to its volume. Surface area 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.480 means that more of that that substance can come into 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.720 contact with something else than it would on the macro scale. So, uh, 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.520 you know, relatively speaking, more of the actual substance would 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.120 be exposed to a solution. For example, if you were 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.640 to suspend nanoparticles into a solution, more of the service 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:24.440 of those particles would be exposed to that other substance, 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.440 whatever it might be. Then it would if it were 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.000 a you know, a bar of it on the macro scale. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.440 That means that it can do stuff more efficiently than 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.080 many things on the macro scale, and that includes being 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:39.400 a catalyst. Now, a catalyst in chemistry, we're talking about 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:44.079 something that facilitates chemical reactions, not necessarily that it itself 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.960 reacts chemically with something else, but it might aid in 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.240 the reaction of another substance third party negotiator. Yeah, that's 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.760 a good way of putting it. So, for example, fuel cells, 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.200 we talked about those a lot. A catalyst and a 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.520 fuel cell is essentially what convinces you know, I say convinced. 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.200 There's not really any convincing, but go with you this 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.560 convincing a hydrogen atom to ditch it's its electrons, become 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.680 a hydrogen ion and pass through a membrane. Right, you 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.240 might want a little bit of what platinum in there? Yeah, 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.360 we're talking about platinum on the nanoscale, little nanoparticles of platinum. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.280 And again, the reason why you want nanoparticles it exposes 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.200 more surface area of the platinum, so that way it's 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.560 a much more efficient catalyst. So it's also why a 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.680 lot of the earlier fuel cells were so expensive because 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.400 you had to have platinum to be able to create 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:35.160 this catalyst for the membrane for your basic hydrogen based 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.560 fuel cell. So this catalyst then convinces the hydrogen to ditch. 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:42.000 The electrons come on across a permeable membrane and join 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.240 some oxygen, and then the electrons go through a pathway, 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.320 a circuit that you have built so that they do 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.960 work what however you wanted them to work, like drive 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.000 a car, for example, and then they rejoin the fuel 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:54.720 cell on the other side, and that's where you get 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.800 the water, where the hydrogen, ions, the oxygen, and the 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.840 electrons all rejoin, and then all you have is water 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.080 and then the electricity and the heat. So that's just 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:08.040 one example of how the chemical reactions are are different 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.400 on the now scale and how it's really important. The 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.000 other thing I wanted to mention was that I had 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.480 talked about how some forces are really important others aren't. 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.880 Gravity on the nanoscale is practically meaningless. You it's these 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.480 particles are so small and these reactions happen so close 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.040 together that gravity really doesn't play a part. It's it's negligible. 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.880 You can pretty much ignore it. However, electro magnetic force 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.640 off the charts incredibly powerful. So, like you were saying, Lauren, 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.360 it doesn't take a very strong magnetic field for you 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.440 to have a strong effect because those forces are way 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.400 more important at this scale than something like gravity. Gravity 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.600 big important force when you're talking about cosmological scale, right, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.760 and then electromagnetism doesn't really have that much of an 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.120 effect because it's it's not as strong over great distances, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.080 but you know here it's the opposite way. So interesting 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.560 thing to think about. And also, electrons they get up 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.160 to Shenanigan's yeah, they can. They can tunnel through materials 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.360 that are that are one nanometer thick that they can 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.360 kind of teleport from one side of a barrier to another, 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.000 which is not teleportation is not actually something that that 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.840 is physically that's against the rules usually, so uh, to 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.120 get a little more specific with this, this is one 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:27.800 of the big problems with designing microprocessors using nano sized 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.440 pathways because if the chips in your computer do you're 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.560 you're thinking for you, right, because ultimately that's really about 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.680 controlling the flow of electrons through lots of teeny teeny 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:41.760 super teeny tiny circuitry. Right, So you have these electron 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.960 gates that either allow an electron through or prevent an 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.880 electron from moving through. And these gates are getting smaller 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.640 and smaller as we continue to miniaturize these these UH 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.640 elements so that we keep making more powerful microprocessors. Essentially 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.359 more powerful means you've crammed more elements onto that microprocessor 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.200 by making them smaller. So we've seen this ever since 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:07.359 the very the birth of the transistor. Now the problem 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:10.760 is when that gate gets so thin that the electron 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.280 can tunnel through. And by tunnel through, we don't mean 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:15.840 that it actually makes a hole and then passes through. 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.960 It's not damaging the gate. What's happening is there's a 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.360 field around where when we say an electron is located 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:27.040 a certain place, we don't really mean it's exactly right there. Yeah, 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.119 there's more like a field of probability of where an 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.760 electron can be found at any given time. So you 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.560 can think of it as sort of nebulous, almost like 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.320 a gas like thing. Alright, just just an area and 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.760 anywhere within that area the electron has the possibility of 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.760 being at any given time. Now, as that starts to 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.560 approach a gate, if the gate is thin enough, then 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:54.119 part of the area could overlap the gate and be 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.879 on the other side, with the other part of the 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:58.840 area being on on the first side of the gate, 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:00.960 And therefore, when we need to act the position of 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.240 the electron, there's a pretty good chance that it's going 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.000 to be across that gate. Yeah, there's at least a possibility. 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.679 And as long as there's a possibility, that means sometimes 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.080 it is on the other side of that gate. Right, 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.560 if it's possible for it to be there, sometimes it's 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:17.320 going to be there, and maybe that it's a fifteen 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.119 percent possibility and that of the time it's going to 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.080 be on the other side. But even that means sometimes 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:24.920 the electrons on the other side of the gate, which 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.600 means your gate is not keeping the electrons out, which means, 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.160 in the case of electronics, the thing is barked. Yeah, 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.399 it means that you get errors. You know, you're you 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:38.639 get a microprocessor that cannot process without without lots of 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.360 logic failures. So that's a real engineering problem, and there 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.639 have been lots of different engineers working on this and 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.359 they solve it in different ways. Usually they use different 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:51.880 exotic materials that are better at at blocking electrons than others. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:55.359 But but ultimately it's this quantum effect that makes things 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.399 so tricky, and that's the world of the nano scale. 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.280 Like you know, again, in a classic world, if you 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.800 were to roll a ball towards a toward a brick wall, 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.280 you wouldn't expect it to suddenly appear on the other 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.199 side of the brick wall and continue rolling. That just 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.400 wouldn't happen. It would bounce off the brick wall. Or 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.760 if that red ball were filled with some sort of 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.479 incredibly dense material, perhaps it would make a hole in it, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.560 But it wouldn't. It wouldn't just pass like onto the 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:25.720 other side without any other kind of interaction. It's extremely unlikely. Well, 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.040 another thing about that red ball, if you want to 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:32.159 play with the ball, you can predict pretty much what 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.640 it's going to do. It's initial starting conditions, Like I've 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:39.200 pushed it in this direction with this amount of force, 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.600 you can actually predict pretty well where it's gonna end up. Yeah, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:44.960 as long as you know the other variables, like you 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.960 know how smooth the surfaces it's rolling on. But ultimately 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.080 you've got a good idea, you know, just even intuitively 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:53.920 on the on the nanoscale, that doesn't come into play. 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:57.240 There's also this idea of random molecular motion or brownie 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.679 in motion. I'm sure you've probably heard that term if 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.520 you've ever taking chemistry or physics, like the idea of uh, 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.080 you know, the brownie and motion also explains the movement 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.640 of things like smells. So if you are baking cookies 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:11.560 and you walk into a house and someone or someone 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:13.119 else has been baking cookies and you walk in and 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.280 you smell it, that's brownie emotion. That explains the motion 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:17.800 of the molecules that move through the atmosphere. I cannot 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.119 believe that you didn't just say brownies instead of cookies, 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.600 so that it could have been brownies motion. Well, I 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.800 mean it's that's a fair point. I didn't miss an opportunity. 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:29.560 But I also like cookies more than I like brownies. 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.919 So anyway, at the at the macro scale, random motions 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:36.280 not as big a deal. Okay, So think of this 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.240 like a stream that's moving just at a a steady rate, 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.399 but not crazy. Like it's not a rapid, but it's 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:45.800 a steady rate. Now on the macro scale, if you're 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.359 walking through that stream, you might feel a little bit 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:50.439 of a tug here and there, but it's not that 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:55.679 bad on the nano scale. This seemingly simple motion on 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.800 the macro scale becomes really chaotic, you know. It's it's 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.840 much more of a kind of a raging, rapid sort 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.879 of approach. And uh so it's sort of that idea 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.960 of as you get smaller, these these seemingly um tiny 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:14.120 effects have much larger consequences, as we all saw from 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.600 the documentary Honey I Shrunk the Kids exactly, or or 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.280 inner space as I was alluding to earlier. Yes, both 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:24.720 of those have proven beyond reasonable doubt that tiny things 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.960 can have big impact. Okay, so we've been hearing about 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:32.800 nanotechnology for years. Can it actually do anything for us? 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.960 I mean absolutely so those microprocessors I mentioned, you could 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:39.560 argue those have had a some somewhat of an impact 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.360 on our lives by boys, But you know, we're using 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.640 nanotechnology and all sorts of fields already, right, not just 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.320 high tech, but in ways that you might not anticipate. 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:55.639