Racing the Nanoroadsters to Find Fame with Physicists

In a previous Age of Cool, big was the thing so get ye a Stutz Bearcat, cool young man.

That was a time for the Charleston, enormous dirigible aircraft, and giving women the right to vote.

Ed:  amazing.  No political cheapshot after that!

I tried but I broke out in a case of hives.


Coolness, thankfully, evolves so now the cool young man races nanoroadsters, tiny vehicles about the size of a single molecule.  Today there's just no way you can really be happening without a three-wheeled nanoroadster which may do up to twenty-three nanometers per hours.  Yes, astounding, isn't it.  (Science Daily:  Light drives single-molecule nanoroadsters)

A scanning tunneling microscope image shows two three-wheeled nanoroadsters created at Rice University and tested at the University of Graz. The light-activated roadsters, next to their molecular models, reached a top speed of 23 nanometers per hour.

Credit: Alex Saywell/Leonhard Grill

Tut, tut.  You thought I was making this stuff up.  Maybe you were thinking of the Weird Science you know and you prefer it because Kelly Le Brock is in it.  That's a good reason for any science but to get nanoroadster weird, you need physicists.

"It is exciting to see that motorized nanoroadsters can be propelled by their light-activated motors," said Tour, who introduced nanocars in 2005 and motorized them a year later.  "These three-wheelers are the first example of light-powered nanovehicles being observed to propel across a surface by any method, let alone by scanning tunneling microscopy."

Rather than drive them chemically or with the tip of a tunneling microscope, as they will do with other vehicles in the upcoming international NanoCar Race in Toulouse, France, the researchers used light at specific wavelengths to move their nanoroadsters along a copper surface.  The vehicles have rear-wheel molecular motors that rotate in one direction when light hits them. The rotation propels the vehicle much like a paddle wheel on water.

- Science Daily

Darlin', before this lot is through, you will be begging for that lazy tub of lard who hangs around on Sunday afternoons, drinking beer and watching NASCAR.  As you can see, we're entering a new world of weird, a really teeny tiny one. 

And that intro was only starting to get weird because these racers have just as much concern for track conditions as Formula 1 drivers when they select whether to run on soft tires for wet conditions or harder tires for dry conditions.

A surface activation temperature of 161 kelvins (minus 170 degrees Fahrenheit) proved best for driving conditions. If the temperature is too cold, the roadsters would stick to the surface; too warm and they would diffuse randomly without help from the motor.

"We were surprised by the very clear correlation of the enhanced motion to the presence of the motor, the need for both heat and light to activate this motion -- in perfect agreement with the concept of the Feringa motor -- and the wavelength sensitivity that nicely fit our expectations from spectroscopy in solution," Grill said.

-  Science Daily

And don't be thinking this is so strange these physicists are probably going to be lifetime virgins.  Robert Carradine explained how it works, "You see, jocks spend all their time thinking about football but we nerds spend all our time thinking about sex."

"Revenge of the Nerds" (1994)

Be careful with this lot, ladies.  They're a whole lot of fun but absolutely barking mad.