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History Of Nanotech

Meanwhile, a brief mention in Engines of Creation of the dangers of self-replicating systems was proving increasingly troublesome to the field of molecular manufacturing. The idea arose that any molecular manufacturing system would be only one "oops" away from eating the biosphere. The Wired article "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us" by noted computer scientist Bill Joy publicized this concern. Nanoscale technology researchers, fearing-perhaps with justification-that "gray goo" would threaten their funding, increased their efforts to distance their work from molecular manufacturing. One of the easiest ways to do this was to claim that molecular manufacturing was impossible and unscientific. These claims gained force since molecular manufacturing research was (and remains) highly technical, interdisciplinary, theoretical, and mostly undemonstrated.

In the past decade, theorists have begun to flesh out the details of how nanotechnology might be used in manufacturing and medicine, although it is unclear how soon any of this will be possible. Some analysts have estimated that major breakthroughs in molecular manufacturing are at least three decades away; others have suggested that major progress might occur in the next five years.

From atoms, to molecules, to machines, to manufacturing systems that can duplicate themselves using simple molecular feedstocks: this overview has explained only the broadest outline of the approach and its merits, and has not touched on the problems of design, control, and reliability. Those problems appear to be solvable with ordinary research and development. Other problems are somewhat more esoteric and less well understood: for example, it is not yet known exactly how to mechanically manipulate small molecules to make them join into larger functional structures. There are some practical problems that arise at the nanoscale (including many quantum effects and thermal noise) that will complicate the design process. No one has said...