In the previous post I mentioned the Femtotech discussion at H+ Magazine…
There’s Plenty More Room at the Bottom: Beyond Nanotech to Femtotech
…and a companion piece…
Searching for Phenomena in Physics that May Serve as Bases for a Femtometer Scale Technology
…both discussing the prospects for femtotech, which is femtometre scale technology or manipulation of processes at the femtometre scale. A femtometre is 1 millionth the scale of a nano-metre and the scale at which nuclear processes, the realm of the strong force, is dominant. Femtotech would involve speeds trillions of times higher than nanotech – itself trillions of times quicker than events at the metre scale. The energy levels would be similarly higher too.
To get an idea of what femtotech could do, one should look at Alexander Bolokin’s speculative paper on materials composed at the femtometre scale with nuclear strength…
Femtotechnology: Nuclear Matter with Fantastic Properties
…a fantastic cornucopia of possibilities arise if such material can be made, and made stable. No material held together by mere electromagnetic forces can make, for example, the Dyson Sphere an actual whole sphere. AB-Matter femtotech could. Conceivably advanced cultures have wrapped themselves in femtotech, so that not only are they able to make star-system sized spheres, but also divert light around the sphere and redirect their own waste heat in directions of their choosing.
One wonders if advanced civilizations haven’t “gone stealth” for reasons we can’t imagine and have migrated to the Galactic Perimeter for a better view of the CMB…
Galactic Gradients, Postbiological Evolution and the Apparent Failure of SETI
…perhaps leaving behind advanced automation able to keep an eye on future trouble-makers like us.