From: portal!cup.portal.com!kr@pyramid.pyramid.com.UUX
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Snowballing tomk
Date: 20 Aug 92 00:14:32 GMT

In article <11654.3.728.1 Snowballing nanotech>(8/18/92)
the following was written by tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich):

(excerpted):
->There seems to me something pretty fundamental missing here.
->
->In order to have a technology developed to any serious
->level, don't you need to have a purpose for it?

I can't help myself from asking: have you ever read Eric Drexler's
book EoC ("Engines of Creation") ? 
Even leaving aside the resulting incredible increases in computational
powers (see JoSH's addendum to your posting) with all its newly opening
possibilities (like maybe new forms of art with a stunning blend of 
colors, sounds, and sensations in 3D real-time : wow!),

don't you think it would be a worthwile venture to convert todays
dirty industry into clean molecular manufacturing where the widest range
of products (from "simple" chemicals to completely assembled devices 
like aerospace-vehicles and skyscrapers) are being produced with *NO*
toxic waste byproducts at essentially the cost of the raw materials
(excluding design costs, though) while using solar energy provided
by cheap solar cells (instead of burning up petroleum or nuclear stuff) ?

If this doesn't give you enough of a purpose, then I don't know what
could. Practically all materials and devices can be made better, lighter,
stronger, more energy-efficient, smarter, cooperative, and so on, if
you can manufacture with having control of how the atoms are being
arranged. It is no difficulty in finding appropriate applications;
about everything can be vastly improved or fundamentally transformed
into high performance products, compared to which todays devices look
like clumsy stone-age technology.

To probe where the limits of improvement lie, many design studies of
an exploratory nature can be made today in order to get a feel of 
what is coming up.

Besides exploratory engineering, though, one should not forget that 
serious work on finding implementation pathways is already well
under way and nanotechnology will probably arrive rather sooner than 
later.

I would have thought that by now it is really clear that nanotechnology
provides enormous economic incentives to justify its development. 
tomk@netcom.com has proved me wrong. It is now time to wake up and 
read all the information that is available out there and to get used
to the idea nanotechnology will come soon. It is time to figure out
in what direction we want to channel our creative potential.

It is only up to us human beings on this planet to figure out how to
direct the use of nanotechnology towards desirable applications and 
to be aware of and avoid the potential downsides.

Last but not least:
please don't take my raving as a personal offense. :-)
I just was really surprised to see such a question being asked these
days. I hope that now your question has been clarified a bit.
In addition to reading EoC, information on many everyday applications
of nanotechnology can be found in
"Unbounding the Future" by Drexler, Peterson, and Pergamit.
Additionally, Drexler's technical book "Nanosystems" should appear
in October, according to the publisher John Wiley & Sons.


------- End - of - Message -----------------------
(responsibility for my personal opinions is mine)

Richard Stallman : "The more society becomes
        information instead of material objects,
        this question of whether
        a person can copy things
        will make the difference between

        a world of universal prosperity
     or a world of constant rat race."

__________________________________________________
kr@cup.portal.com            IIIII  M   M  M   M
Markus Krummenacker            I    MM MM  MM MM
(working for                   I    M M M  M M M
 The Institute for             I    M   M  M   M
 Molecular Manufacturing)      I    M   M  M   M
                             IIIII  M   M  M   M