Picotechnology, femtotechnology, and beyond

Talk about scientific and technological developments in the future
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GTrang
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu May 27, 2021 5:16 pm

Picotechnology, femtotechnology, and beyond

Post by GTrang »

Four new SI metric prefixes were recently created, namely ronna, quetta, ronto, and quecto for 10^27, 10^30, 10^-27, and 10^-30 respectively.

We already know what nanotechnology is. Modeling on nanotechnology, there is also picotechnology and femtotechnology.

In fact, the technology could be made even smaller! We could also have attotechnology, zeptotechnology, or yoctotechnology. With the new prefixes, this could continue with rontotechnology and quectotechnology.

Will we ever have those ever-smaller forms of technology beyond picotechnology and femtotechnology?
Vakanai
Posts: 313
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2022 10:23 pm

Re: Picotechnology, femtotechnology, and beyond

Post by Vakanai »

GTrang wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:38 pm Four new SI metric prefixes were recently created, namely ronna, quetta, ronto, and quecto for 10^27, 10^30, 10^-27, and 10^-30 respectively.

We already know what nanotechnology is. Modeling on nanotechnology, there is also picotechnology and femtotechnology.

In fact, the technology could be made even smaller! We could also have attotechnology, zeptotechnology, or yoctotechnology. With the new prefixes, this could continue with rontotechnology and quectotechnology.

Will we ever have those ever-smaller forms of technology beyond picotechnology and femtotechnology?
Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm somewhat skeptical myself however, simply because the smaller you go the more that you bump against just plain old physics. Powering such small bots and devices, never mind engineering them to be functional, becomes an ever harder and difficult a task to perform. Never mind running into the truly bizarre world of quantum physics, which makes control and reliability even more tenuous a concept. Even a highly advanced AGI of the future may find that it's an impossible achievement to ever reach. But then, I could be wrong.

There's also the question of potentially diminishing returns. At a certain scale would going even smaller actually have any value to what can be done, or is the goal simply to prove it's possible even if it isn't beneficial? I would very much be curious what the potential uses for such technology would be and how they would or could differ from nanotechnology and femtotechnology once those fields are mature.

Nanotechnology and beyond (below?) is one of those exciting fields in that once we become sufficiently advanced enough everything changes. Smart dust for example would make transhumans or posthumans seem like gods compared to us - imagine just willing a chair into being from seemingly the very air itself around you whenever you wish for a seat. Or to create small physical moving displays before you like a more tangible hologram. Poe and his hotel in Altered Carbon are examples of this. Never mind that we ourselves could become nanotechnology, much in the same way we're already comprised of nature's nanotechnology, the cell. Perhaps not the best film, but Terminator Genisys hints at what such bodies might be like with their villainous take on John Connor.

But what the limitations of nanotechnology are, where femtotechnology differs and overcomes those limits, and what the limits of femtotechnology is and how going smaller would further differ and overcome those limits, I'm sadly not knowledgeable. But with smart dust and bodies comprised of nanobots, future people could very well live lives in physical reality that currently we only dream of being possible in some SAO or Matrix style virtual reality.
Jakob
Posts: 72
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:12 pm

Re: Picotechnology, femtotechnology, and beyond

Post by Jakob »

GTrang wrote: Fri Nov 25, 2022 8:38 pm Four new SI metric prefixes were recently created, namely ronna, quetta, ronto, and quecto for 10^27, 10^30, 10^-27, and 10^-30 respectively.

We already know what nanotechnology is. Modeling on nanotechnology, there is also picotechnology and femtotechnology.

In fact, the technology could be made even smaller! We could also have attotechnology, zeptotechnology, or yoctotechnology. With the new prefixes, this could continue with rontotechnology and quectotechnology.

Will we ever have those ever-smaller forms of technology beyond picotechnology and femtotechnology?
These prefixes sound weird but I guess it's cool to have new ones lol. That said, and ***technology depends on there being some form of matter to manipulate at that level, and as far as we know, there isn't really anything to manipulate at that level. Same with picotech, as it would be bigger than protons and neutrons, but smaller than atoms. Femtotech is a cool possibility though.
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