From: rodman@pkr.asd.sgi.com (Paul Rodman)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Evolution and nanotech
Date: 29 Aug 92 06:41:24 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc.

Hi Tom K, 

I would have preferred to respond to you directly but tomk.netcom.com
saves you.

I'm quizzical at your questions about nanotech and worries that it
won't make money.

If you read Science news I would classify a large percentage of the
articles as nanotech-ish even though you or others may not have
realized it.  Nanotech is happening and nobody has to "fund" it
explicitly, although this is probably a very good idea.

This business of "tiny robot arms" is probably the thing that has you
bugged and this exasperates me too...it'll be a long time before this
approach to moleculare engineering is possible, i.e. they'll be big
changes in the world due to nanotech before any "assemblers" as
envisioned by Drexler (et al) exist.

The key realization of Drexler's work, IMHO, is that we are currently
don't do any real engineering of "stuff" at the molecular level....and
tremendous benefits to all branches of engineers and science are
possible when we can. Our current crude methods of manipulating matter
make you want to cry if you really thing about it. Look at how
wonderful we think carbon fibers are..bah..crude junk on a small
enough scale. If a 747 was as crudely constructed at the macrosopic
level as it is at the molecular level you wouldn't expect it to fly
very well...why do you think our ability improve things with better
engineering stops at what you can see?

People are trying....computational chemists, etc. but its _hard_. It's
like trying to build with tinkertoys......but you're the size of the
earth.

As we learn more about how molecules and atoms behave..in life's
machines and in total, we'll gradually do a better and better job
making things from them.  It isn't a very profound observation, and
_thats_ what is so exciting about it to me...there isn't any new hard
science involved at all, really.

IMHO, the most important first uses of nanotech will be in simple
mass-produced raw materials...where the knowledge you gain of how the
molecules behave allows you to find simple methods to make what you
want, en mass, as you already do today. (i.e. computational chemistry
rather than "toss it in a beaker and see what happens..nothing..oh
well, try again.) Bucky-balls and Bucky-tubes are some early "faddish"
tinkering in this area.

On the life sciences side we still struggle to learn. I still remember
looking at the flagellum on little bacteria under the microscope in
high school. At that time nobody knew that that "flagellum" was really
a corkscrew, and that it wasn't whipping back and forth..it was
ROTATING in a rotating coupling powered by an ion engine!! Incredible.
Millions of students had looked at these critters for DECADES and
missed thier shot at a Nobel Prize.  :-)

Another important realization is the self-leveraging effects of work
on molecular engineering. One of the reasons that computers have
progressed so rapidly is they are "self leveraged", i.e. each
succeeding generation is used to build the next. The only way we can
design chips with millions of transisitors and get them to work is the
use of the fastest computers around, for logic simulation and circuit
simulation and some circuit synthesis now too. I worked on a project
in the '70s where we used the wire-wrap prototype of a new computer to
run the PC board routing software for it's own boards.

If for some perverse reason we were not allowed to use computers in
the process of designing them, I assure you the price/performance
improvement for computers would be LOT worse than it is (not as bad as
cars of course, :-).  Nanotech has _exactly this same characteristic_.
Many of the advances will make it easier produce more. Sometimes the
feedback will even be as immediate as with computers. These
observations and others point toward a steep exponential growth in
nanotech.

If you read Engines of Creation and/or Unbounding the Future...just
remember what I said..Drexler knows (and says) that he may be way off
on the whens and hows....the important thing is to realize everything
that makes our industrialized society go around is dependent on crude,
mass manipulations of matter and improvements in this leverage
everything. Don't get hung up on visions of tiny "assemblers", these
are just one stab in the dark at how molecules might be
manipulated.(very general, but very very hard to do)

Paul K. Rodman       "Current integrated circuit construction techniques seem
rodman@sgi.com        to resemble geology more than manufacturing.." 
KA1ZA                            -K.E. Drexler (paraphrased)