Nanotechnology Part 1: Nanomechanics and Algodoo

Embark on a journey to the "nano-world" with our cutting-edge course, "Exploring Nanotechnology Through Simulation." Human cognition often creates analogies to comprehend the nanoscale, yet our intuition frequently falls short in accurately grasping processes, forces, and interactions at this level. Nanotechnology—the research and application of materials and devices smaller than 100 nm—is an exceptionally interdisciplinary field. It draws on mechanics, photonics, chemistry, physics, biology, materials science, and engineering, paving the way for enhanced products and the discovery of enabling technologies. However, visualizing nano-particles, materials, devices, and machines is a challenge due to their size—comparable to atomic clusters. Thus, nanotechnology can be complex to grasp, primarily due to the difficulty in visualizing the behavior of minuscule entities in this tiny world. Enter Algodoo—a simulator developed by Algoryx Simulation AB that creates simulated experiments, which users can explore and play with rigid bodies, fluids, chains, gears, gravity, friction, springs, hinges, and more. The time scale in Algodoo is, by default, 16.666 ms or 1/60 second (60 Hz), and resolving sub-cm physics in a shorter time-step can be challenging. Nevertheless, after simulations, we'll use back-of-envelope calculations to estimate orders of magnitudes and better understand how scaling influences nanosystems' behaviors compared to their macroscopic analogies.