From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: Definitions, Nanotech.
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 07:00:37 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

alyoung@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (amy young) writes:
: It's interesting that I've asked people just *what* is
: nanotechnology... it's thrown around quite frequently, but the two
: people I personally know who blab it all the time can't give a good
: definition of the word...  Anyone want to try?
: 
: amyx
:  

You asked for a definition of nanotechnology. First, there's a newsgroup,
sci.nanotech, you might want to look at. Second, there have been many articles
in the popular press on nanotech, complete with useful diagrams to better get
the idea across. And I cite two books below.

But I'll go ahead and say a few things about nanotech. Understand that the term
means different things to different people:

*To some, nanotechnology is any technology that deals with things at the scale
of "nanometers" (10^-9 meter, or .001 micron). This includes chemistry,
molecular biology, materials science, etc. Several labs have "nanoscale" or
"nanotechnology" in their names, and may have little to do with other
interpretations (especially those in this group!).

*To others, nanotechnology implies molecular scale machines, cell repair,
superstrong materials, abundant material goods, and all kinds of wondrous
things. This may indeed happen. For more on this, see the widely available book
"Unbounding the Future," by Drexler, Peterson, and Pergamit.

*Eric Drexler defines it thusly: "Mankind is on the threshold fo the greatest
innovation in the history of science and technology: the ability to build
molecules atom by atom. These molecular building blocks can then be arranged in
any combination of patterns to produce every conceivable substance of device.
This new technology--called nanotechnology--will also enable scientists to
repair damaged human cells." ("Engines of Creation," 1986)

Nanotechnology is a hybrid field, to the extent it's really a field at all
today, made up of contributions from several areas:

-the behavior of mechanical objects (rods, gears, etc.) at nanometer scales.
Atoms are spaced at fractions of a nm, so nm-scale objects may consist of
10-100 atoms on a side. Drexler will be having a technical book published later
this year which goes into great detail on these kinds of things.

-the design of such objects, especially for complex machines (one of the
fundamental goals is the "assembler," a machine which can make a large class of
other machines, possibly including replicas of itself, from basic raw
materials...such a machine is beyond our current understanding).

-the chemistry of these small structures (surface effects, intermolecular
forces, etc.)

-applications to, and contributions from, biology

The current form of nanotechnology is mostly due to Eric Drexler, who wrote
several seminal articles about ten years ago on the design of nanometer-scale
machines. For example, he postulated a "rod-logic" computer that operated much
faster than electronic computers by using logic gates implemented with rods
made mostly of carbon. (I was a device physicist at Intel at the time and was
convinced the physics was sound, despite the impracticality.)

Drexler's book, "Engines of Creation," was published in 1986 and presented a
more popular and visionary look at nanotech. Indeed, you'll find that most
nanotech supporters believe nanotech will change the world (it will, someday)
and will make their other causes (life extension, colonization of space, etc.)
possible. 

The discovery of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM) about the time
Drexler's book was published did a lot to make the idea of moving atoms around
one at a time seem more plausible. The atomic force microscope (AFM) has
actually been used to write nanometer-sized messages on surfaces (you may
recall seeing "IBM" spelled out in atoms). 

I should note, skeptically, that we are a long way from building a single gear
or rod, let alone a complex assembly. Some believe the "assembler breakthrough"
(assemblers building other assemblers, etc.) will happen in the next 15-20
years. Perhaps. But it will eventually occur, barring catastrophes, and that's
what excites many people.

There are many issues...scientific, technological, economic, moral, cultural,
and so on.

This should be enough to get you started. 

-- 
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