32 replies to this topic

[Logically Irrational]

Atto- is the metric prefix three orders of magnitude smaller than femto-. The timeline delves into nanotechnology heavily, and eventually goes into picotechnology and even femtotechnology. I was wondering if humanity will eventually advance into technology on the scale of one quintillionth of a meter (10^-18). If it does become possible, when will it happen, and will we be able to advance farther into even smaller scales? Zepto- and Yocto- are quite small.

According to this graph, attotechnology will be possible probably around 2150 or so.



I'm not too sure on how realistic that date is however, since on that scale you would be dealing with things the size of quarks. What does everyone else think?

[tornado64]

I'm not sure it's possible. You can hardly build things smaller than atoms, so you get the 'fat finger' problem. I think we will probably reach a boarder we can't overcome. The green line seems realistic, but the red line seems very unlikely to me.

[CyberMisterBeauty]

Attotechnology will be a reality around 2140,according to the graphic...

[tornado64]

Attotechnology will be a reality around 2140,according to the graphic...

I'm able to see and read a graphic...that changes nothing on the fact, that not every graphic is true;)

[Craven]

I don't see this coming true. Atomic level will probably sensible limit. Manipulation on smaller scale will surley be possible, but there will be no real reason to go there with technology.

[Logically Irrational]

Yeah, pretty much the only thing I would have to say on this coming true is "blah, blah, insane future technology, blah, blah." I suppose this is another thing that we can't really discount either way, just since it would be so far off.

[wjfox]

With quantum computers, and sufficient AI, we could achieve it.

[Craven]

What if it enables creation of unicorns and invisible dragons

[Shimmy]

Yea, this is all seems pretty insane to me. The smallest scale I can ever see us making useful structures is on the scale of a nucleus. Not only do we have nothing to make things of at a smaller level, we also wouldn't have any tools that precise either. The best we can hope for is artificially designed nuclear structures of about an angstrom or so in size that perform functions normal nuclei cannot. The idea of pico seems unbeleviably unlikely and femto to me just seems unthinkable without completely changing the laws of physics.

[MarcusAurelius]

Imagine if we did discover that attotechnology and beyond is where alien AI is now residing. Having reached this technology millions of years ago. Food for thought?

[Kynareth]

Attotechnology may someday come true, this could become possible using sophisticated computers and femtotechnology. Same thing with femto and pico technology.
I can't imagine exactly how we could do this but I wouldn't rule it out from possibilities since with AI there can be a way to affect such small parts of matter and do something useful with it .

Imagine if we did discover that attotechnology and beyond is where alien AI is now residing. Having reached this technology millions of years ago. Food for thought?

That's truly interesting. Imagine, we can only be a computer of very old civilization and that would include everyone and everything so our world with birds singing, water flowing, supernovas exploding, people eating, thinking, walking, fucking and talking could be anything more than a long computation they're carrying out.
What if in the year 2212 we discover that in the fabric of our universe is incorporated alien computer that doesn't care about we are we doing in a macro scale, us being merely like cores in i7 processor.

[Raklian]

Attotechnology may someday come true, this could become possible using sophisticated computers and femtotechnology. Same thing with femto and pico technology.
I can't imagine exactly how we could do this but I wouldn't rule it out from possibilities since with AI there can be a way to affect such small parts of matter and do something useful with it .

Imagine if we did discover that attotechnology and beyond is where alien AI is now residing. Having reached this technology millions of years ago. Food for thought?

That's truly interesting. Imagine, we can only be a computer of very old civilization and that would include everyone and everything so our world with birds singing, water flowing, supernovas exploding, people eating, thinking, walking, fucking and talking could be anything more than a long computation they're carrying out.
What if in the year 2212 we discover that in the fabric of our universe is incorporated alien computer that doesn't care about we are we doing in a macro scale, us being merely like cores in i7 processor.

Let's find out, won't we? Unfortunately we'll have to wait for a few centuries.

[CyberMisterBeauty]

Few centuries??Of course not,we will have to wait till 2140-2160.By the way,when Wjfox will add it to the timeline?I can't even imagine what will be possible with attotechnology...

Edited by CyberMisterBeauty, 24 May 2012 - 10:25 PM.

[Shimmy]

Few centuries??Of course not,we will have to wait till 2140-2160.By the way,when Wjfox will add it to the timeline?I can't even imagine what will be possible with attotechnology...

You do realise the future timeline is a very speculative guess at various aspects of the future and that it's not a real 100% accurate timeline that is acutlaly going to happen? You seem to have made a lot of comments which are based on the whole thing being 100% factually accurate and tehn act as if questioning or doubting anything is silly or ridiculous.

[Tumaini12]

Obviously, no present-day physics or engineering theory can give even the vaguest notion of how to manipulate reality on a scale orders of magnitude smaller than the nucleus of an atom. Or, indeed, what practicable use such a technology could be. At such scales, after all, getting smaller than quarks or leptons, there are no definite, dependable entities to work with - only a seething, ephemeral multitude of virtual particles appearing and vanishing endlessly.

With one possible exception: the idea of a quantum ramjet space drive. Unleashing the energy of the quantum fluctuations (which operate only at plank scale , 10^-33 metres or thereabouts) on a macroscopic scale would be a source of energy unimaginably greater than fusion or even antimatter...

Edited by Tumaini12, 28 May 2012 - 09:30 PM.

[Italian Ufo]

Few centuries??Of course not,we will have to wait till 2140-2160.By the way,when Wjfox will add it to the timeline?I can't even imagine what will be possible with attotechnology...

You do realise the future timeline is a very speculative guess at various aspects of the future and that it's not a real 100% accurate timeline that is acutlaly going to happen? You seem to have made a lot of comments which are based on the whole thing being 100% factually accurate and tehn act as if questioning or doubting anything is silly or ridiculous.

I agree with you Shimmy

[Logically Irrational]

Found this interesting essay on kurzweilai.net:

http://www.kurzweila...arks-and-gluons

[Alric]

Well that has always been the beauty of technology. You can create a precise tool then use that tool to make an even more precise tool. It is hard to imagine how they would do it, but that is because we have not yet invented the tools for it. A human probably couldn't ever directly manipulate it, but we could probably program some super tiny piece of technology to do it. Who knows maybe we will have super tiny bots that go around vibrating strings from string theory. That would be pretty badass.

[kjaggard]

Obviously, no present-day physics or engineering theory can give even the vaguest notion of how to manipulate reality on a scale orders of magnitude smaller than the nucleus of an atom. Or, indeed, what practicable use such a technology could be. At such scales, after all, getting smaller than quarks or leptons, there are no definite, dependable entities to work with - only a seething, ephemeral multitude of virtual particles appearing and vanishing endlessly.

With one possible exception: the idea of a quantum ramjet space drive. Unleashing the energy of the quantum fluctuations (which operate only at plank scale , 10^-33 metres or thereabouts) on a macroscopic scale would be a source of energy unimaginably greater than fusion or even antimatter...

Um, would being able to do things on these sorts of scales allow us to build computer processors smaller than an atoms nucleus? Can you imagine a super computer with processing power greater than all of current humanities brains combined fitting into a single cesium atom and networking with billions of others like it in the palm of your hand. Teaming with AI constructs hashing out the details and crunching the numbers of how to brideg the gap into other realities. Or calculating the exact amount of energy and matter sequestration needed to innitiate a big bang genesis to reboot the universe before the end of the Black hole period.

What about building a virtual world that is billions of times more complex and wonderous than what reamins of our universe toward the endo of time, and having eons passing in nanoseconds, all in a baseball sized lump?

Who knows what else we will discover about the nature of the universe or multiverse that we will ultimately want to discover, explore and even manipulate.

Why we might even crack the code of the holographic structure of the universe and be able to look back through the space time to it's origins and everything inbetween, and finding those patterns recreate things, events, people...

The tech is too far out and depend on so much we have yet to learn and also depends on the minds and creativity that are there to use it.

[Tumaini12]

Teaming with AI constructs hashing out the details and crunching the numbers of how to brideg the gap into other realities. Or calculating the exact amount of energy and matter sequestration needed to innitiate a big bang genesis to reboot the universe before the end of the Black hole period.

Why wait until the distant cosmological future? If such notions become realisable, one could create a new universe in the laboratory (so to speak - your laboratory might be out in the Scatterd Disc, hundreds of AUs from the Sun...) and have it expand into a separate reality outside our own 3-dimensional space. If we knew how to access higher physical dimensions, that new universe would always be accessible for study - and eventually, colonization - without it affecting the Universe we know.