| A Project with Paradoxical Goals | |||||||
| Nanotechnology A Question of Faith
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An earlier version of this page described this author's reflections on why he has never shared this faith. The Wired Brain Tennis Debate between Brad Cox and Ed Regis is an updated version of these reflections.
Ralph Merkel's Response The April Scientific American includes a lengthy but inaccurate story on nanotechnology. It contains virtually no substantive technical content, having instead the flavor of negative political journalism. Although we are disappointed with the tone of the story, it's not too surprising. Scientific American is one of the "gatekeeper" publications, serving as a filter between scientists and the public. While this works well for scientific discoveries, it does not work well for technological or engineering proposals such as nanotechnology. Therefore, their gatekeeper function has been bypassed in this case, leading to some cognitive dissonance on their part. Sooner or later, they will have to change their view of technology and the future, but as this news story indicates, later seems more likely. --Chris Peterson Director Foresight Institute
NanoTechnology Magazine by Bill Spence
An Ethical Stand Against Genetic Engineering [bjc: raises a different but related issue of no less importance] Powerful international economic and political forces are driving the widespread implementation of genetic technologies throughout the environment and into our lives. On November 17, 1994 one scientist took a courageous ethical stand against the hazards of these new technologies. In a news conference in Washington D.C., molecular biologist Dr. John Fagan called for a 50-year moratorium on the most dangerous applications of genetic engineering and called on researchers to explore safer, more productive avenues of research. In a move unprecedented in the annals of the National Institutes of Health,, Fagan underscored his concerns by announcing that he would return to the NIH $613,882 in federal grant money and withdraw $1.2 million in grant proposals for research that could have been used for potentially dangerous genetic engineering applications.
Nanotechnology in Manufacturing by John Walker; Autodesk Ever since I read K. Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation I'd been interested in nanotechnology and followed the relevant literature while trying to figure out, as is my wont, how to make a buck out of it. As one of the designers of Xanadu and an ardent supporter of the project, Eric became acquainted with Autodesk when we invested in Xanadu in 1988. When Eric saw a demo of HyperChem at a conference, he immediately realised that the fit between Autodesk and Hypercube, Inc., developers of HyperChem, was potentially very good. When Eric and Chris Peterson spoke to me about this opportunity, I finally saw not only an opportunity for Autodesk to establish itself in the scientific modeling market, but also a way to position ourselves to benefit from the advent of nanotechnology, if and when it emerged, for surely one could not design atomically-precise structures without a molecular CAD system, which is precisely what a molecular modeling package is. In early 1989, I prepared this talk about the consequences of nanotechnology to help tilt the balance in favour of the HyperChem deal. The talk was delivered at the Autodesk technology forum on May 10, 1990, before an audience which included Eric Drexler, Chris Peterson, and Neil Ostlund, founder and president of HyperCube, the designer of HyperChem.
A Proof About Molecular Bearings Ralph C. Merkle Molecular bearings are likely to be as ubiquitous in future molecular machines as conventional bearings are in today's macroscopic machines. The ability to design molecular bearings will therefore be crucial. In molecular bearings made from a shaft with m-fold symmetry and a sleeve with n-fold symmetry, we prove that the potential energy of the bearing as a function of the rotational position of the shaft within the sleeve will be periodic, with a period of GCD(m,n)/ (m*n). This result continues to hold true even when the shaft and sleeve are jointly minimized, so that the abstract perfect symmetries of the shaft and sleeve are marred by the perturbations in structure each induces in the other. If the period is sufficiently short, e.g., if a small rotational change drives the bearing from one minima to the adjacent minima in the potential energy function, then the barrier height will be small and the bearing will be able to rotate without difficulty.
Review of Nanosystems: molecular machinery, manufacturing, and computation by K. Eric Drexler (576 pp., 200+ illustrations. Wiley Interscience, 1992, hardcover $42.95, paperback $24.95)
Nanotechnology Manufactured products are made from atoms. The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. If we rearrange the atoms in graphite (as in a pencil lead) we can make diamond. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a few other trace elements) we can make computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air we can make potatoes. Todays manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms in great thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of LEGO blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. Yes, you can push the LEGO blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together the way you'd like.
The 'Official' Nanotechnology FTP Site The nanotech archive is kept at planchet.rutgers.edu, in the /nanotech/papers directory. It contains the following files: "Background" essays and "Update" newsletters
The Problem of Nonsense in Nanotechnology by K. Eric Drexler Trends in academic interest and media coverage suggest that nanotechnology will receive growing attention. This field subsumes several others, including much of molecular electronics and advanced biotechnology. Flakiness in this broad field will tend to reduce funding and to reduce the number and quality of workers. Similar (but lesser) effects seem likely to spill over into all fields that appear similar in the eyes of reporters, managers, and politicians. A consensus on sound ideas, however, will tend to have positive effects. If bogosities thrive, they will also tend to obscure facts, hampering foresight--and as I argue in Engines of Creation, foresight in this field may be of extraordinary importance.
Nanotechnology: A Key Advance by K. Eric Drexler, 1985 oreseeable technological advances will enable us to build devices to complex, atomic specifications. This will make possible a nanotechnology that includes both nanomachines and nanoelectronics. As microtechnology involves micrometer-scale devices, so nanotechnology will involve nanometer-scale devices. These advances will change macroscopic technology as well, because all technology rests ultimately on our ability to arrange atoms to make hardware. The prospect of nanotechnology forces a reevaluation of our expectations regarding the next several decades. New dangers make foresight vitally important. This paper outlines some basic facts regarding the nature and consequences of nanotechnology. It is condensed, containing more assertions than explanations--its goal is not to provide a thorough technical discussion, but merely to describe a set of facts and make them plausible to readers with broad technical literacy.
Nanocritics by Ralph Merkel While nanocritics were relatively common several years ago, they have become increasingly rare; there has been some concern they might become an endangered species, unable to survive in the modern world. Most nanocritics tend to be rather shy and retiring, fearing (quite rightly) that they will appear foolish or ignorant. And very few indeed will commit their words to public print: this would, after all, force them to either defend their beliefs or confess to an amused world that they got it wrong.
Overview of Nanotechnology (not "Just the FAQs") Adapted by J.Storrs Hall from papers by Ralph C. Merkle and K. Eric Drexler
Nanotechnology at nano.xerox.com
DNA, proteins as software - software as genetic biocycles Sometime ago, I reported on a recent discovery of how gene sequences can be used for mathematical optimization calculations. The method, developed by Leonard Adelman (the "A" of RSA) provided a way of solving the Traveling Salesman Problem using gene sequences (interestingly, the paper by Hopfield that kicked off the neural network revival also solved the TSP). Computable genes blurs even more hardware and software (along with hardware/software codesign tools), but has yet to sink into PTO statutory and prior art thinking.
Hypertext Publishing and the Evolution of Knowledge by K. Eric Drexler Media affect the evolution of knowledge in society. A suitable hypertext publishing medium can speed the evolution of knowledge by aiding the expression, transmission, and evaluation of ideas. If one aims, not to compete with the popular press, but to supplement journals and conferences, then the problems of hypertext publishing seem soluble in the near term. The direct benefits of using a hypertext publishing medium should bring emergent benefits, helping to form intellectual communities, to build consensus, and to extend the range and efficiency of intellectual effort. These benefits seem numerous, deep, and substantial, but are hard to quantify. Nonetheless, rough estimates of benefits suggest that development of an adequate hypertext publishing medium should be regarded as a goal of first-rank importance.
| Modification date: March 07, 2004 | © Copyright 2004 by Brad Cox |