Monday, September 3, 2007

now those are spur gears





A refinement to the 10-gears for the mechanical calculator

Whenever I think of molecular gears or what have you, these are a lot closer to what I envision then the tiny little sulfur atom teeth on the last iteration. These silicon tipped teeth look damn near industrial: Detroit style nanotech.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you sure that the larger size of the Si atoms doesn't present more possibilities for unwanted side reactions?

I'd do an ab initio methods study of just the teeth meshing to be sure that nothing bad happens. Silanes are viciously reactive.

(In general, the less sterically hindered the environment around an atom, the more opportunities there are for mischief.)

Tom said...

Hey!

It would be great if you would do one of those studies. Let me know what sort of information you need from me.
Then we can post the results here.

Thanks-