All rights reserved. Progress in science suggests the feasibility of achieving thorough control of the molecular structure of matter via controlled molecular assembly. The consequences of such an ability will be enormous, in areas as diverse as medicine, computation, manufacturing, and the environment. We can gain some understanding of these future possibilities by observing examples from nature. Enzymes are molecular machines that make, break, and rearrange chemical bonds at a rate of up to a million per second.
Muscle fibers work like molecular-scale linear motors.
DNA serves as a digital storage medium, directing ribosomes in manufacturing proteins. Nanotechnology will likewise use programmable molecular machines to build complex structures atom by atom. The term nanotechnology has sometimes been used to refer to any technology giving some control at a substantially sub-micron scale. He suggested that large machines would be used to build smaller machines, which would build yet smaller machines, working toward molecular dimensions. These techniques are now being used to make mechanical structures such as gears and motors.