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Well, perhaps you remember our post about Feynman’s memorable speech at Caltech, December, 29 – 1959 called: “There is plenty of room at the bottom” For all of us, it was the beginning of Nano-Tech.
Absolutely Mr. Feynman was right, one more time. Yes, it seems as if Ph. D. Richard Feynman stays saying to students, entrepreneurs, investors and to everybody at the entrance of his classroom “Yes, come in, there is plenty of room at the bottom, please, come in and don’t stop on researching and, of course, in investing too”.
Nevertheless, it is a practical blog. We want to show main figures and easy rules. All oriented to people that need to take decisions about investment and they need to know the exact dimensions and the future scenarios. Well, let's go!
From the memorable speech mentioned above
“Let us represent a dot by a small spot of one metal, the next dash, by an adjacent spot of another metal, and so on. Suppose, to be conservative, that a bit of information is going to require a little cube of atoms 5 times, 5 times, 5 times, that is 125 atoms.”
Well, in this paragraph the author considered 1 bit equivalent to 125 atoms.
HD-DVD versus Blue-Ray technologies and other comparatives.
Below, we will express how far away these technologies from the theory limits established by Mr. Feynman lie.
We have considered a CD-format, in other words, a disc of 5.7 cm of diameter, and with a circular sector between 2.1 and 3.5 cm. (It is easy to probe that, you can measure it)
The result of this dimensions is 8.82 exp(-3) square meters. Value [A]
We have considered too a typical atom as an sphere of 1 • exp(-10)m of radius, approximately double of Bohr’s radius. Thus, the volume of one atom will be 4.18 exp(-30) cubic meters. Value [B]
Well, now please read carefully this table:
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Technology: CD-ROM
Capacity (Gbytes):0.7
Wavelength laser source (nm): 780
Length Hole surface (micrometers): 0.8
Track-wide (micrometers):1.6
Atoms per format: 1,69Exp(+22)
Atoms-per-bit: 3,01 Exp (+12)
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Technology: DVD
Capacity (Gbytes):4.7
Wavelength laser source (nm): 650
Length Hole surface (micrometers): 0.74
Track-wide (micrometers):1.6
Atoms per format: 8,44Exp(+21)
Atoms-per-bit: 2,24 Exp (+11)
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Technology: HD-DVD
Capacity (Gbytes):15
Wavelength laser source (nm): 405
Length Hole surface (micrometers): 0.2
Track-wide (micrometers):0.4
Atoms per format: 4,22Exp(+21)
Atoms-per-bit: 3,52Exp (+10)
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Technology: Blue Ray
Capacity (Gbytes):25
Wavelength laser source (nm): 405
Length Hole surface (micrometers): 0.15
Track-wide (micrometers):0.32
Atoms per format: 3,17Exp(+21)
Atoms-per-bit: 1,58Exp (+10)
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Wow, are you surprised? We are so!
We are very, very far away from the limit established by Mr. Feynman of 125 atoms per bit. Blue Ray, the great Blue Ray, the Once, still needs 15,800,000,000 atoms per bit!!!
The most important aspect that concerns to new recording and recovering information optical technologies is the wavelength of the laser reader device. We need to research to reduce it, and we will be able to reduce the track wide recording and the Length hole of monocape.
In any case, there is plenty of room at the bottom. The investment community had to think that the recording technologies and their impact in business (better media distribution, recording format cheaper and faster) have a clear opportunity of business. If you think in investments to improve the optical systems and laser sources in order to reduce the wavelength…perhaps any nanometers only…it could be great. Sure.
