Ancient Nanotech.
Andre Willers
15 Mar 2014
Synopsis:
Actual nanotech artifacts 1 600 years old . Combine with 3D
printers for really cheap nanotech .
Discussion :
1.You don’t need high-tech to create nanotech . Sometimes a
simple grinder will do .
2.A smidgen of silver, gold and other metals , the known recipe , a
fine grinder and 3D Printing and you can churn out
Fancy Nanotech designs by the thousand . Including optical circuit boards and switches .
3.This is a 1 600 year old nanotech beaker , that has different
colours depending if the light is from behind or from the front .
Front lighting . Back lighting .
4. See how it was done :
The Lycurgus Cup, as it is known due to its depiction of a scene
involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, is a 1,600-year-old jade green Roman chalice
that changes colour depending on the direction of the light upon it. It baffled
scientists ever since the glass chalice was acquired by the British Museum in
the 1950s. They could not work out why the cup appeared jade green when lit
from the front but blood red when lit from behind.
The mystery was solved in 1990, when researchers in England
scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman
artisans were nanotechnology pioneers: They had impregnated the glass with
particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50
nanometres in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table
salt.
The work was so precise that there is no way that the resulting
effect was an accident. In fact, the exact mixture of the previous metals
suggests that the Romans had perfected the use of nanoparticles – “an amazing
feat,” according to archaeologist Ian Freestone of University College London.
When hit with light, electrons belonging to the metal flecks vibrate in ways
that alter the colour depending on the observer’s position.
Now it seems that this technology, once used by the Romans to
produce beautiful art, may have many more applications - the super-sensitive
technology used by the Romans might help diagnose human disease or pinpoint
biohazards at security checkpoints. Gang Logan Liu, an engineer at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has long focused on using
nanotechnology to diagnose disease, and his colleagues, realized that this
effect offered untapped potential.
They conducted a study last
year in which they created a plastic plate filled with gold or silver
nanoparticles, essentially creating an array that was equivalent to the
Lycurgus Cup. When they applied different solutions to the plate, such as
water, oil, sugar and salt, the colours changed. The prototype was 100 times
more sensitive to altered levels of salt in solution than current commercial
sensors using similar techniques. It may one day make its way into handheld
devices for detecting pathogens in samples of saliva or urine, or for thwarting
terrorists trying to carry dangerous liquids onto airplanes.
This is not the first time that Roman technology has exceeded
that of our modern day. Scientists studying the composition of Roman concrete,
submerged under the Mediterranean Sea for the last 2,000 years, discovered that
it was superior to modern-day concrete in terms of durability and being less
environmentally damaging. The knowledge gained is now being used to improve the
concrete we use today. Isn’t it ironic that scientists now turn to the works of
our so-called ‘primitive’ ancestors for help in developing new technologies?
- See more at:
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/1600-year-old-goblet-shows-romans-used-nanotechnology-00793#sthash.csDbUPHp.dpuf
5. May all your replacement bones shine brightly .
Andre
xxxxxxxxxxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment