The components that make up our computers are constantly getting smaller, allowing more and more processing power to be contained in smaller and smaller devices. The transistors that make up a modern computer chip have features as small as 25 nanometers. At the same time, we are discovering how substances behave at the sub-microsopic level, enabling us to design materials with a range of innovative and useful properties. These technologies could be adapted to make ultra-small machines capable of performing useful tasks, such as delivering medicines to specific parts of the body, sensing and reporting on hard-to-reach environments, or manufacturing new devices from raw materials. This last ability could lead to a self-replicating nano-device, able to create components from any suitable source and assemble them into a working copy of itself. Such a device, if left unchecked, could multiply extremely rapidly until all available resources had been consumed and turned into more nano-robots - the result might appear to the naked eye as an amorphous mass, and this is therefore known as a 'grey goo' scenario. Self-replicating nano-machines, once started, would be practically impossible to stop.
Estimated time until self-replicating nanotechnology consumes all life on Earth:
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DISCLAIMER: These Dates
of Impending Doom are intended as a general guideline only. We have had to estimate certain contributory factors to
the EOTWAWKI events, and
the timings may not be 100% accurate. We can not accept responsibility for any loss or inconvenience that may
arise should the world end earlier than indicated, or if it should fail to end when anticipated.
