Re:Ask HN: What Happened to Nanotech?
by usrbinbash on Saturday January 15, 2022 @08:55AM
(#29946342)
> Arguably mRNA vaccines are specialised nanobots.
A nanobot is a machine that takes action. mRNA is only an information carrier, read by the cells translational machinery (the ribosomes).
The
> depending on what scale you allow
Nanomachines, as the name implies, are at the nanometer scale, so generally theterm implies machines (bots) that are at most 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than 1nm. A microcontroller that measures a few centimeters is, by definition, not a nanobot (It also isn't a robot). Even a robot that measures only 1mm is still 6 orders of magnitude above nanometer scale.
A nanobot is a machine that takes action. mRNA is only an information carrier, read by the cells translational machinery (the ribosomes).
The
> depending on what scale you allow
Nanomachines, as the name implies, are at the nanometer scale, so generally theterm implies machines (bots) that are at most 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than 1nm. A microcontroller that measures a few centimeters is, by definition, not a nanobot (It also isn't a robot). Even a robot that measures only 1mm is still 6 orders of magnitude above nanometer scale.