Accelerating Future

Ralph Merkle on Diamondoid Mechanosynthesis Monday, Feb 25 2008 

nanotechnology Michael Anissimov 5:05 pm

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4 Responses to “Ralph Merkle on Diamondoid Mechanosynthesis”

1. Andrew Shevchuk Says:
   February 25th, 2008 at 9:07 pm

   Michael, thanks for posting this. It is great to see the latest from Merkle and Freitas is so promising. I wish somebody had asked a question about the timescale for building the entire functional toolset. It’s wonderful that they have an experimentalist on board, but I’d still like to know if they expect the initial synthesis to take months or years. I will certainly be reading the paper when it comes out in a few months.

2. Richard Jones Says:
   February 26th, 2008 at 4:01 am

   Andrew, the experimentalist in the Nanofactory collaboration is Philip Moriarty, from Nottingham in the UK, who is an excellent nanoscientist with considerable expertise in scanning probe microscopy. I think it is very positive that he is involved, as he has been one of the few experimental nanoscientists to really engage with the mechanosynthesis project and give a reasoned critique of it. You can read his very detailed correspondence with Chris Phoenix here, which will give you some idea of the scale of the obstacles he sees that need to be overcome.

3. Andrew Shevchuk Says:
   February 26th, 2008 at 7:36 pm

   Thank you Richard. I have now read through the entire Phoenix-Moriarty correspondence and it has certainly been enlightening. I too know a nanoscientist who is quite skeptical of the MNT vision because of sticking points in the fundamental chemistry.

   Fortunately the three years of Freitas’s and Merkle’s research since the debate have put us in a position to finally attempt these “proof of principle” experiments. I haven’t reviewed Freitas’s and Merkle’s previous proposals in any real depth, but they seem to focus on proving just, say, dimer placement or hydrogen abstraction feasibility. Here there is a “complete” toolset that has been extensively tested via quantum chemistry simulations. The whole endeavor just feels more ready and prepared now that we have this well-laid-out approach.

   Perhaps I’m overly excited and optimistic about this development. It can be difficult to temper transhumanist enthusiasm with a rational scientific skepticism. There’s still a long way to go. If Peter can build all nine tools and then replicate them, I would hope that this finally decides the Smalley-Drexler debate (since the fundamental chemistry of mechanosynthesis will have been proven feasible).

4. Alexander McLean Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 9:43 am

   Would anybody be kind enough to post a transcript of the video?

   My ears aren’t operative and I can’t view videos online without captions.

   Many thanks!

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