[acecharly (OP)]

How far could we do this and if we made it with a camera could we see elementary particles if we gave it a transmitter?

[RD]

How far could we do this and if we made it with a camera could we see elementary particles if we gave it a transmitter?

The wavelength of visible light wouldn't be reduced as the robots got smaller.
Subatomic particles are too small to be seen with visible light.

An atom sized probe has been used to "see" (more like feel) individual atoms ...
http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/nanoquest/atom_manipulation/index.html#seeing

[Geezer]

Nice idea, but it's unlikely to work. You might scale the robot down, but the processes used to make the bits are only scalable to a certain extent. As the scale reduces, the manufacturing processes have to change significantly.

[damocles]

How far could we do this and if we made it with a camera could we see elementary particles if we gave it a transmitter?

The wavelength of visible light wouldn't be reduced as the robots got smaller.
Subatomic particles are too small to be seen with visible light.

An atom sized probe has been used to "see" (more like feel) individual atoms ...
http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/nanoquest/atom_manipulation/index.html#seeing

The recent emphasis on scanning tunnelling microscopy has upstaged an earlier technique -- field ion microscopy.
A field ion microscope can produce visible images of individual atoms. A field ion micrograph is a thing of beauty!

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28-4/text/atoms.htm

[Airthumbs]

Would you be able to do the reverse....   start small and pro-gram for bigger.

[acecharly (OP)]

I thick materials would be the issue here.

[Zer0]

This OP is Interesting.

Once A.I. reaches d level of conscious self - awareness, provided it is unleashed, maybe dats xactly wat an AI system wud do...build d smallest n largest.

Don't c y material wud b an issue, plenty of matter around.
An ai-nanobot wud b soo cool!

Would a bot d size of an atom be able to play wit an atom?

[Petrochemicals]

Could we make a robot that grows another robot within its structure, that the smaller robot could resize itself to the same size as the original robot, and add to the knowledge given to it by the original robot. Perhaps it could upgrade itself in line with other robots and there qualities to select suitable abilities to let it become more than a clone of the original robot.

[evan_au]

You can't just scale up a robot:
- Let's say that you make it twice as big in every dimension
- It's mass increases by a factor of 8
- But the cross-section of its supports grows by only a factor of 4
- So eventually, it will collapse under its own weight (after a couple of doublings)
- Similarly, a larger robot will have increased trouble dissipating heat, as the surface area only grows by a factor of 4

You can't just scale down a robot:
- At small scales, the viscosity of air becomes more significant
- At the size of a bee, air acts much thicker - more like swimming than flying (this is related to the Reynolds number)
- At small sizes, overcoming viscosity is a major issue

So, in practise, you need to change the scaling of the robot to adapt to the changed conditions.
- And/or you may need to scale the environment too...
- If you reduce the size of the robot, you may need to reduce the air pressure
- If you increase the size of the robot, you may need to reduce the gravity(!)

[Zer0]

@evan_au

U killed d OP man...dayum!

😑

[Bored chemist]

Have you read this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo_(short_story)
The same idea is part of the story

[Zer0]

Dis is quite an intrestin topic!

A huge/big robot wuld collapse under its own weight...on Earth...
Unless it is built in Space!

D asteroid belt wud seemingly b a nyc spot 2 start off, all d robot wud hv 2 do is maintain momentum/velocity 2 keep a  stable orbit...lots of matter/material at hand already.

I wonder if all d asteroids in d asteroid belt were put together 2 form a planetary shape, how big wud it be?
D size of our moon, mars, d earth, or all of dem combined?

Now, suddenly, d kuiper belt seems an even better spot 2 start off construction!