Nanotech: Yay or Nay? Monday, Feb 25 2008
nanotechnology 4:36 pm
At the Los Angeles Times, Aatish Salvi and George Kimbrell will be discussing the promises and ethics of nanotechnology all week. An excerpt from today’s article:
“A common misconception about nanotech is that it is a single technology. Unlike biotechnology (which focuses on genes and DNA) or information technology (which focuses on microchips and software), nanotechnology encompasses a collection of methods and tools for dealing with all matter at the nano scale. It is best thought of as a new approach to building things. Working at the nano scale allows us to manufacture with unparalleled precision and efficiency. Rather than mining tons of ore at a great cost to the environment to find a handful of diamonds, nanotechnologists can start with carbon and build a flawless diamond one atom at a time. Because they are so precise, nanotech processes waste less material, consume less energy and produce better results.”
(Emphasis added.) My point here is that while some may argue that today’s nanotechnologists dismiss Drexlerian molecular manufacturing, it simply isn’t so. References to molecular manufacturing pop up in regularly in mainstream discussions of nanotechnology, and only scientists meticulously reliant upon biological approaches put much effort into snuffing it out. Diamondoid mechanosynthesis is very likely to be developed — it’s just a matter of time.
Of course, nothing is 100%, and diamondoid mechanosynthesis could fail, or prove impossible to adapt to industrial manufacturing. But if it is successful, the likely impact is far larger than anything any typical futurist has dreamed of — diamondoid spires 10 km tall being built in weeks, 100m barrel cannons capable of using active camouflage to hide their positions, personal aircars that travel at hypersonic speeds. None of these structures would be an engineering challenge — any talented team of engineers could get the job done. The main limitation is our manufacturing processes, a limitation which would be lifted by the introduction of diamondoid mechanosynthesis for industrial applications.
February 25th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Michael, it isn’t just nanoscientists with a bio- inclination who dismiss Drexlerian molecular manufacturing. Don Eigler, for example, is on record as saying “everyone I know who is a practicing scientist thinks of Drexler’s contributions as wrong at best, dangerous at worse. There may be scientists who feel otherwise, I just haven’t run into them.” Eigler, of course, is the pioneer of the manipulation of individual atoms using the scanning tunneling microscope, the author of the iconic image of the letters “IBM” in xenon atoms, and is about as un-biological as nanoscientists come.
You’re welcome to think the scientific consensus against Drexlerian molecular manufacturing is wrong (though I think you should consider carefully the reasons that underlie this widespread position) but you’re deluding yourself if you don’t accept that this consensus exists.
February 25th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Hi Richard, thanks for your comment, I was hoping you’d make one. So far, I’ve observed that those who *really* care about debunking Drexler are bio-oriented. The scientific consensus against Drexler — if there really is one, it’s clearly not so powerful if the VP of the NanoBusiness Alliance agrees with him — seems to consist mainly of a tacit dismissal based on sci-fi extrapolations of MM, rather than the viability of DMS itself. In the majority, the “consensus” against Drexler seems to be in response to these “futuristic promises” rather than an honest look at the technology itself. (In your case I know that’s not true.) Some nanotechnologists have also called the work “too wrong to even be worth looking at”, which makes me mighty suspicious.
The Eigler statement is oft-quoted, but I don’t find it being said by too many other nanotechnologists. It is repeated often enough to be analogous to the mantra of Drexlerians that not a single error was found in Nanosystems.
I am aware of many potential objections to Drexler’s ideas, but so many are obviously made by people who haven’t even read Nanosystems. You are a rare example of a nanotechnologist that has actually taken a look at the ideas and argued against their plausibility from an informed perspective. Maybe the ongoing debate will encourage you to present or elaborate existing criticisms for my continued study. In your writings, you haven’t even identified any unbeatable roadblocks — only challenges that demand further simulation, engineering, and experimentation. Pro-MNT figures like Freitas and Merkle openly acknowledge your criticisms as valid areas of concern.
Anyhow, the arguments between the pro-MNT and anti-MNT camps have been ongoing for more than a decade now, and I’ve looked at it long enough to read as many arguments from both sides as I could find, and come to the conclusion that MNT looks plausible. If there really is a scientific consensus against MNT, there must be at least a hundred publications against it, but I have trouble finding more than a dozen. Show me the meat (i.e., the references).
If a “consensus” ever did exist, I’m afraid it seems to have died with Smalley (RIP).
Also, when I put “nanotechnology” into Google, the vast majority of the initial results all refer to MNT. If MNT is so taboo, why do so many popular, serious, and diverse sites endorse it? Of course, it could be that all these sites have it wrong, but if I can’t even find what is supposedly the consensus scientific position on MNT through Googling (or talking to any of the scientists I know), wouldn’t it be hard to get informed about it?
February 25th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Michael, the brutal reply would be to point out that you don’t often see astrophysicists arguing against astrology, and yet every newspaper still has a horoscope. I remember in 2003, when I was writing the ESRC report, having an email correspondence with who was then perhaps the second most prominent nanoscientist in the USA (after Smalley). He said, (roughly, as my memory serves me), he didn’t concern himself with Drexler, as he was obviously wrong and the matter was quite uninteresting. My own position, that Drexler may be wrong about many things but he’s still interesting, is really rather rare - when I last talked to this same scientist, a year ago, he said he was glad that I was taking the time to make the arguments as he really couldn’t be bothered. As for the Eigler quote, I doubt that it is oft-quoted (it actually comes from rather a recent and obscure source, by a science studies academic who directly asked a number of nanoscientists for their views on the influence of Feynman and Drexler) - you’ve probably heard it before from me.
“If there really is a scientific consensus against MNT, there must be at least a hundred publications against it, but I have trouble finding more than a dozen. Show me the meat (i.e., the references).” This isn’t how science works. When people think something’s wrong, they just ignore it, or more likely it doesn’t even enter their consciousness. The consensus against MNT isn’t represented by large numbers of papers arguing it is wrong, it’s marked by the absence of MNT from the scientific dialogue. Take a look at Web of Science, you’ll see that Drexler’s works just aren’t cited very much, and those papers that do cite him are only rarely in the technical areas relevant to the MNT proposals.
The science has moved on, and people are thinking and getting excited about other things (quantum computing and synthetic biology, to give two examples).
February 25th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Diamond is the building/general-purpose material of The Future (and by The Future, I mean any time between next year and the year 2025), for one simple reason: it’s primary component is carbon, which is absolutely ubiquitous upon this planet (as well as throughout the Universe), and it can be doped with rather common heavier elements such as titanium and even iron to create stronger diamond materials.
Drexlerian assembler technology may still be a bit distant in the future (and by a bit distant, I mean twenty to thirty years, and no more), but mechanosynthetic diamond engineering is practically on our doorstep.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:32 am
OK Richard, I’ll trust you on this. But I still doubt that the science ever took a serious look at it, so it can’t really “move on” from it. You are correct that Drexler’s works aren’t cited. Maybe because DMS is quite difficult and offers little short-term benefits? And biological parts are conveniently pre-made and much better understood? Or maybe because many scientists have taken a look at it and regard it as futile? I don’t really know.
And don’t worry about being “brutal”… I am willing to understand the position of MNT in the idea landscape. Maybe I just haven’t talked to enough scientists. By talking to a limited number of nanotechnologists and keeping an eye on many nanotech articles and news items, I see a limited — albeit real — interest in Drexler-inspired approaches. This LA Times article was just the most recent example. Yet, I also worry about groupthink in science, as presented in books like The Trouble with Physics.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I don’t think that the problem is a matter of ‘if’ some form of MNT or “nanofactories” is possible. It’s a matter of which application or process eventually survives in the marketplace. (ala VHS vs BetaMax or Blue Ray vs HD-DVD.)
It’s only a matter of time …and a matter of which ‘process’ succeeds first. In one example that I can think of, the only problem at this point is scalability. i.e. how to make thousands of the nanoscale ‘devices’ or ‘tools’ and then make them work in concert.
In other examples, certain applications and improvements of ‘3D’ printing devices may get the job done.
In view of publicly available research, the argument that MNT or ‘nanofactories’ are impossible is invalid and even irrational.
Discussions over whether Drexler’s vision of the technology will work in the marketplace or not is another argument entirely.
Discussions about whether MNT and ‘nanofactories’ should continue to be funded is also another matter. Without the funding, it won’t happen in the near future, but eventually, it will happen none-the-less.
February 26th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Re: Scientific consensus and the Drexlerian “vision”
While science itself is perforce open to all possibilities, scientists themselves have always been notoriously protectionist. It is not surprising that Drexler is seldom quoted in research papers, only someone working directly on MNT would do so and since the “consensus” has already discouraged that position due to individual’s personal interests it is a classic catch-22.
Everyone agrees that the road ahead is marked by diminishing fractions. But the scientific community has little or no incentive to take Drexler’s Shortcut.
I find it particularly fascinating in light of Merkle’s elucidation of a 9 molecule tool system as shown in the video. There are literally dozens of tip systems for an assortment of scanning probe and atomic force microscopes many of which would provide fine hosts to Ralph’s 9 tools. This is where the next round of criticisms have their chance to be proven right. Or conversely, one more very significant step will be taken towards a resounding vindication of Mr. Drexler’s contribution.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:33 am
The only problem with the idea of Nanotechnology that I can see is that people may be associating it with a certain piece of fiction that has been put into the imaginations of too many people for a general appreciation for the complexity of creating “things” “organisms” “nanosystems” however you wish to describe them will be of utmost importance. I believe that just as most species survive by furthering their knowledge of how to precisely manipulate it’s environment is crucial to our understanding of Why certain things happen.
I would like to inquire as to if any of you know where and how the carbon is going to be applied for the manufacturing of goods and even perhaps services. Is there any way of using carbon gas a s a source. If this idea were to become “Fact” Then I think that the world would be indebted to the possibilities that the basic Nanosystem has for humanity as a whole. And who ever said that Nanosystems cannot be modeled after preexisting design.
I find the fact that botanicals are essentially end all ideal flawless factory for food production energy production and Natural air cleansing. And who is to say that Nanosystems could not benefit Biological engineers To an exponential degree. And with the understanding of plants more efficient computer systems can be created.
Their is an ingenious complete design in botanicals and even in animals insects and humans and within every genus and species of the planet. These “Facts” should not be ignored because without them a true understanding of how we as humans move interact and interpret the world around us cannot fruitfully move forward through to the future. What that future may hold I nothing but a faint hope.
What I do know about the future is that unless man does not come to understand enough about this planetary organism we are on and all the organisms that have survived here will we ever be able to enjoy the future. The future will of planet earth will contain botanicals. And those botanicals will will thrive. Why? Human beings will no longer be able to interfere with their natural evolution and perfect by themselves any minor imperfections that they may have.
Do botanicals all plant life wish to be aided by humans and their technologies. Could A Botanical come to create a relationship with the robot or AI system that runs the systems that take absolute care of that botanical. Would botanicals appreciate being relieved of harmful microorganisms and thus reach achievements in growth that are only mentioned in fantasy novels.
Genetic engineers could find many practical and efficient answers as to how Nano and even macro systems that we know to exist function. All scientists no matter which field can also appreciate lessens that botanicals give free of charge if one would ever take the time to smell the roses they may tell you of a way in which to use her design to create flawless perfumes that through careful breeding or a little boost from some genetic tweaking create fragrances that could satisfy every sense and relive basic life stress by attacking stress producing neurons in the brain and giving you with one whiff complete well being.
Nanosystems have been created and continually improve themselves without Human interference. For some this improvement is not quick enough. Well could it be that these other organisms would appreciate the absolute help that can come from man made Nanosystems or dare I say botanical created Nanosystems.
How could a botanical create a Nanosystem they do it every second. I would love to debate your response. Thank You.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Theodore,
Which fiction?
No one knows the future. I have ideas, but I’m afraid I’m tired of giving the short version and want to give the long version instead. So, it will take a little time. There are already several books and hundreds of pages of work online.
Well, you should reconsider. If plants are all we need, then why are you here talking about nanotech? I’m confused.
How well do you know English? I don’t mean to be dismissive, but your sentence structure is practically impossible to understand. Please tell me why, thanks.
Even if you removed microbes, current plants wouldn’t grow too much larger. For that, you’d need to genetically engineer them or otherwise enhance their growth factors rather than just remove pathogens.
This is a run on sentence. Please break up so your sentences so they are easier to understand. Thanks.
What is up with your obsession with plants, and why do you call them “botanicals” instead of just “plants”?
February 27th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
“Which fiction?”
Frankenstein.
“No one knows the future. I have ideas, but I’m afraid I’m tired of giving the short version and want to give the long version instead. So, it will take a little time. There are already several books and hundreds of pages of work online.”
Is this website here because we are to not discuss topics?
“Well, you should reconsider. If plants are all we need, then why are you here talking about nanotech? I’m confused.”
the reason why I discuss Nanotech here is for the same reason you post news about scientific development it is interesting.
“How well do you know English? I don’t mean to be dismissive, but your sentence structure is practically impossible to understand. Please tell me why, thanks.”
Probably not as much as you do. But as a creative writer or any writer at all shouldn’t he or she have a distinct writing style however crude it may seem.
“Even if you removed microbes, current plants wouldn’t grow too much larger. For that, you’d need to genetically engineer them or otherwise enhance their growth factors rather than just remove pathogens.”
Well some could argue that the growth of plants could be increased to an exponential degree with a removal of certain genetic locks and precise nutrition control as well as overall total environment control by Botanically programmed Supercomputers (Or robots if you prefer).
“This is a run on sentence. Please break up so your sentences so they are easier to understand. Thanks.”
I feel that any ideas I may present should not be taken into a literal context, but a philosophical context). I do not possess enough knowledge in any field that you display here on this site to make literal statements (although I may do that from time to time. And as I dislike most math to umpteenth degree (I am working on that). I do not approach ideas about the future with an engineers outlook. I am more concerned with the “Why” something works rather than “How ” it works (But I may dabble in in the how from time to time).
“What is up with your obsession with plants, and why do you call them “botanicals” instead of just “plants”?”
As I do not see myself approaching ideas of the future like an engineer would, more of as a philosopher would. Then the thought of studying plants who are nearly perfect already gives me an nearly limitless diversity with which to further understanding in. I think the only reason why seem so Botanophobic towards botanicals is that they are not Artificial, they are biological. And the word Botanicals (You wanted complex conversation greater than that of any social website or blog don’t you?). the word botanicals comes from From Greek βοτάνη = “pasture, grass, fodder”, perhaps via the idea of a livestock keeper needing to know which plants are safe for livestock to eat (That was from wikipedia I love that site!). Thank You.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I think it would be interesting if you could get a comment on the subject from Drexler himself. Isn’t he currently involved with the Foresight Institute in some capacity?
February 28th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Michael let me elaborate further by saying that I completely agree with the statement.
“My point here is that while some may argue that today’s nanotechnologists dismiss Drexlerian molecular manufacturing, it simply isn’t so. References to molecular manufacturing pop up in regularly in mainstream discussions of nanotechnology, and only scientists meticulously reliant upon biological approaches put much effort into snuffing it out. Diamondoid mechanosynthesis is very likely to be developed — it’s just a matter of time.”
This is another reason I should have added to profess my interest in Botanicals. “Perhaps animal systems may or may not be better models for Nanobots”, but botanicals are so so much more pleasing to study. “They also do not incorporate as many problems in dealing with Nano or for that matter Macro systems by themselves”. The design of very efficient botanical species contain unknown principles that could hold the answer to problems Nanotechnolgists face when creating a working design on a Nanoscale. The simple efficient design of certain botanical systems have been inspiring innovators in our world since the beginning of time.
Inside botanicals whether conscious or not (this debate I will leave for others) are systems that move perfectly measured amounts of minerals, water, and any other compounds that may exist to every mm of the plants structure. Each leaf is a flawless all in one contained food factory. This food is seamlessly moved through the structure to be used for later growth. The ability of roots to penetrate even down to the bedrock looking for water and basic elements could hold a key for Nanotechnologists in designing a much more efficient system for obtaining water from the ground. These and many other functions which happen all on a micro scale could be used to interpret things on a Nanoscale.
I recently saw a program about scientists studying the structures of flies at Caltech. These observations where helping to create new ideas for future technologies mainly flight. So “if we can look at a fly and learn secrets about safe flying, Why can’t we look at a tree and learn how to produce our own food (by our own means that could benefit all organisms)”.
March 8th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Hi, everyone. It’s been a while since I’ve weighed-in here. Thanks, Michael, for this post, as well as for the discussion here.
While I’m NOT a practicing physicist, physcial chemist or chemical (or mechanical, for that matter) engineer, I have slogged my way through *Nanosystems* (the late C.P. Snow would’ve been proud of me for straddling the “two cultures” divide…), as well as various responses to and elaborations of it since its initial publication. And I’ve also familiarized myself with some (indeed fairly much) of Merkle’s stuff, but not so much Bob Freitas’ stuff. But in any event, full-fledged “Drexlerian” MNT would certainly seem to be in-principle possible and developable. Diamondoid Mechano-Synthesis is just one such path, but recent promising developments would seem to hold out the promise that within a few yrs (or at least not much [if any] more than a decade or so) some sort of first gen. diamondoid nanofacture system(s)—I mean, hell, at least a *prototype* thereof, for Pete’s sake!!—may well be in the offing. If so, as seems reasonable to further extrapolate that a broader more versatile form(s) of nanofacture may fairly soon *there*after (be) develop(ed), and so on until we arrive at general-purpose (which is to say, general-*capability*) MNT (i.e., e.g, a desk-top nanofacture device which can fairly quickly deliver a steak dinner complete with aspargus and merlot). Sure, there are problems-galore that can be anticipated along the way (indeed, many of them already *have been* and are continuing to be articulated within the community of scientists-&-techs working in the field(s))—but these problems—thermal, entropic-”noise”, information-integrity maintenance-&-conveyance, etc., all of which, at the nano-scale, are closely related of course—don’t seem to be in-principle insurmountable: After all DNA & ribosomes, etc. do their thing reasonably well (at least until advanced senescence kicks-in and systematically starts to screw things up!!).
And I’m all for the (so-called) “biological approach” to nanotech and MNT to continue—diversity (and yet also cross-fertilization and overlap) of R&D paths is important, and will, in any event, continue to fruitfully be the case.
And The Guy is, of course, perfectly accurate in much of what he says. Nanotech (at least Drexler/Merkle/Freits [et al] full-blown MNT) is still partially pooh-pooh by (at least part of) the (so-called) main stream of physicists, chemists, and engineers. But this is (at least partially) due to the fact that most of them haven’t really thoroughly (or even cursorily, for that matter) checked-it-out. But since the mainstream pooh-poohs it, and thus also it gets (obviously) under-funded to hell-&-gone!, even the younger generation tends—yep, you guessed it!—not to really check it out, but instead just parrot the pooh-pooh (if I may be allowed a bit of alliterative flair…). And it is precisely this vicious (indeed, insidious) circle that needs to be broken, and, fortunately, *is* beginning (finally! thank goodness!) to start breaking-down a bit. It’s the old story: The old geezers die-off (with all due respects particular eminent scientists mentioned elsewhere above that I shan’t re-mention specifically) and the “young turks” begin to re-conceptualize and reframe problems…
We must always bear in mind what I call (I can’t remember who also coined this phrase, but someone else uses this phrase occasionally as well) “cascading synergy” and also “confluent synergy”—i.e., the rapid cross-fertilization across many more-or-less separate yet related/overlapping fields. This, along with sheer “quickening” or acceleration of techno-economic development would seem to imply that “full-blown” MNT will almost certainly arise before century’s midpoint, and quite possibly by or before the quarter-century point.
We also shouldn’t omit or discount consideration of the rise, over the next 10-15 yrs, of sophisticated AI systems which—whether or not they are quite full-blown AGI, may nonetheless turn-out to be quite awesomely sophisticated expert-minds nonetheless. If reverse engineering of the neocortex continues apace (Hawkins’ stuff, e.g., just being the tip of the iceberg), then we may eventually see an expert system capable of conceptual understanding and manipulation/extrapolation (i.e., conjecture). From there you could have (so to speak) arise something like, say Blue Scientist or Blue Engineer. Think about it…With such synthetic colleagues to work with, nanotech might develop just that much faster…
Ciao for now…