For those that are skeptical about nano machinery, google 'ribosome' and be amazed.
Nano machinery is real, it exists, it powers the world, it's called biology.
The problem is that we seem to have a hard time translating our hard won knowledge of mechanical engineering to the nano scale, I expect some time will pass before the SF visions will become a reality but I think eventually we will get there. Figure another 50 to 100 years or so?
As long as we keep thinking in terms of conventional mechanics (wheels, gears, levers, wires and so on) it's going to be slow progress because we are trying to push down the size limit on our macroscopic ingredients without a real appreciation of what you can do with molecules 'as is'.
I think at some point the 'genetic synthesis' crowd is going to meet up with the 'nano technology' crowd and that's when we'll see some real action. The first little bits of progress in that direction have already been made.
5 to 10 years? 500 to 1000 years? 5000 to 10000 years? 5 to 10 months?
What are we basing our estimates on?
That is the author's real point. If we don't have a good enough handle on the principles necessary to make this into an engineering problem, there just isn't any sense in trying to guess when these technologies will arrive.
Unless you have some facts or data you're keeping from us.
I've been accused of being too much of a stickler on this, but while the ribosome and other biological machinery are at the nanoscale, but they are NOT nanotechnology. If you use the Drexlerian definition, nanotech much be engineered, which ribosome is definitely not. We can certainly learn from natural systems, but that doesn't make them nanotech.
Also, nanosystems fundamentally are at a scale when quantum properties become important, and classical, mechanical rules start breaking down, which makes things really hard.
Having said that, there are some great examples of nanosystems around, from nanoparticles, to polymer drug delivery systems to materials for PET scans and eventually scalable manufacturing of quantum dots etc. The problem is, that breakthrough is always round the corner. Nano's going to be big, but (a) it is not one technology and (b) we need to be patient cause at those scales things are hard.
Artificial carbon nanotechnology has been used by man since we had fire. It's called "soot". We still don't understand all of the physics of soot formation. The vagaries of burning and soot formation can result in some incredibly tiny particles. This is why smoke is so often used as a drug delivery method and why smoking fish and meat works so well: soot particles can get small enough to work their way between and sometimes through cell membranes.
We recently discovered structures in soot we now call "Buckyballs" and "Buckytubes".
I don't know why, but there's a fascination with everyone outside the materials science/chemistry/physics world that nanotechnoloy is only about little tiny moving things inside a larger system. Yes, there are bio-molecular robots that are supposed to be used for things like drug delivery and whatnot.
But nanotechnology encompasses such a broad array of other disciplines that are primarily concerned with operating at the nano-scale. For example, anyone doing research that involves the electromagnetic spectrum (light) would be considered doing research in "nanotechnology". Those people would include: solar cell manufacturers, laser physicists, radiation specialists, electrical engineers...and so on
Hell, since nano is just a length description, ANY profession could be considered "nanotechnology". "Yes, we our car can travel 26 822 400 000 nanometers per second, its amazing"
Evolution took billions of years to engineer the ribosome (and more importantly to engineer the whole supporting ecosystem where ribosome can do what it needs to do). I doubt humans will be able to do that in next 100 years.
Granted a similar argument can be made for many other comparisons (such as camera or airplanes) but at nano-scales physics of environment plays a tremendous role. The beauty of evolution was that it is an inside-out distributed process so the physics of environment actually helped engineering ribosome.
I wonder if humans will fall back to mechanisms such as guided evolution to create other "nano-machines". Lots of effort has started being put into that direction. Just google "artificial enzymes"
I hate to complain about headlines, but I feel this needs saying:
Headlines such as the one this author has chosen strike me as unpleasantly Digg-like. Exhortations to "stop talking about it and start laughing at it" are anti-intellectual; it's a call to glib derision rather than reasoned rejection.
Yeah it's just like the whole "Fail" meme. It's indicative of how demanding people are becoming that they no longer can be bothered to write a sentence or even conjugate a verb to express their disgust with some flaw that catches their attention for a microsecond.
The name is all about the funding. There are many 'nano'-technology grants, which focus on devices that are tens of thousands, or even millions of nanometers large. Micro-techology, however, doesn't get the same funding from the NSF et al. MEMS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microelectromechanical_systems) has come a long way in a very short time, and, research-dollars willing, will shrink further, so the author is wrong when he says nanotechnology will take another century.
Very true. In the life sciences it was 'biotechnology' in 2000, 'nano-technology' in 2005, and now it is 'synthetic biology'; but they're all the same and have changed names to get the funding.
I really wish that the author would have, when complaining about "Drexler's Book", been clear about which one he was talking about.
Also, "Mechanical objects on microscales do not exist" is gratuitously false, we even have really simple mechanical objects (like cantilevers) on the 100nm scale now.
Flying cars have long been a symbol of the possible technological height of human transportation. But we're not exactly surprised by their absence. Similarly, can't Drexler's '90s idealism be regarded as the possible peak of nanotech? Does the fact we don't have tiny toasters in our bloodstream really negate the acheivement of nanotechnology in medicine and materials science? Personally, I don't think so. This article is too deliberately inflammatory, and doesn't properly look into anything beyond what is now an ancient thesis - as far as fast-moving research areas are concerned. This makes his dismissal of nanotech as sweeping as Drexler's predictions.
I think every Russian HNer laughed out loud when they saw this title. Nanotech here in Russia is a synonym of enormous and inefficient government spending on vaporware since they started considering it a "National project". To be fair, I have no idea how true it is, but it does look very much so, especially with frequent appearance in news but no details about actual results.
This is same as saying to someone working on EINACS and early computers that they are a laughing stock and nothing but huge calculators. Reminds me of an article by Scott Aaronson : "Whats taking so long Mr. Babbage" : http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=446
As someone who's done a fair amount of work in materials science and "nanotechnology", I have to admit there are some valid points in here. Drexler-type nanobots are still just as far away as when he wrote his book, and a large amount of the "nanotechnology" work out there is called such mainly to get funding.
But the author here overstates his case quite a bit. "Millitech"? There are many microscale mechanical systems out there, both in the lab and in industrial applications. Accelerometers are one example; the actuated mirrors in DLP projectors are another. If there's no microtechnology out there, I know a lot of MEMS engineers who are going to be surprised to here it.
A lot of what's called nanotech now could have been called physical chemistry thirty years ago, especially a lot of the "let's put nanoparticles in it!" projects out there. But there's some pretty real nanotech out there too, even if it doesn't qualify under the self-replicating nanobots definition. One example I can think of is the work being done on nanoscale printing--not lithography, but actual physical printing of materials into nanoscale patterns. And there's some pretty cool controlled nanoparticle engineering work out there too.
Why don't we have anything that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale? Couldn't we use atomic force microscopes to push some atoms together and at least make some interesting molecules (even if this process couldn't be scaled up)?
Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very small scale? Has anyone ever tried that?
We do have things that can manipulate objects at the nano-scale. They're called catalysts, and when they're made out of amino acids they're called enzymes, and you and I are built out of them.
Yes, you can assemble molecules with AFM. The problem with this idea is that either (a) the molecules don't stick together at temperatures much above absolute zero, or (b) they do, in which case they might be stable at useful temperatures, in which case it's better to figure out how to get them to self-assemble or to find a catalyst/enzyme that helps them self-assemble. Because your nifty molecule just isn't that nifty if it doesn't exist in quantities of order 1 mole, and 1 mole is... a lot. You just won't believe how vastly mind-bogglingly big 10^23 is.
All of which boils down to this: This essay is great, but the meat of it really is in the first paragraph. Nanotech is a euphemism for chemistry and biochemistry. It is 100% possible -- indeed, nanotech is older than any human-invented technology by many orders of magnitude, by definition, because humans are built out of "nanotech" -- but it's all just chemistry. The real question is why the word nanotechnology is so much more fashionable in grant-writing circles than the old words.
That's kind of the point of the article, materials do not behave on a nano scale the same way they behave at our macro scale. You absolutely cannot scale down, you have to design from the bottom up instead.
The author thinks this is impossible because progress is slow. That's not really an argument, but I'll agree that "just you wait and see!" isn't one either.
However, biology shows us that it's not impossible to do self-replicating "machinery" so I think we'll get there one day, but it might probably be a lot more organic and a lot less mechanical than we currently envision when we say nanotech.
When I was a child, I read a SciFi story about one guy, who built such an arm. Then using this arm under the microscope he built a set of microscopic tools, etc.
Later in the story he fighting with bacteria and viruses, but because of the feedback of his microscopic arm, he was injured and almost killed by these tiny creatures.
That is one of the authors points -- no one has done self replication on a macro scale and nanotech just assumes self replication at the molecular level
"coating one millionth of a millimetre thick – 500 times thinner than a human hair – can be applied to virtually any surface to protect it against water, dirt, bacteria, heat and UV radiation."
You did not fund molecular nanotech and let billions of funding go to buying new buildings at universities and for chemistry research. Molecular nanotech has been excluded from funding since the 2003 start of major funding. When you buy your Ford SUV, do you send your complaints about it to Ferrari when you did not buy a race car?
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/09/eric-drexler-ralph-merkle-o...
"Imagining self replicating nanobots or nano machines is ridiculous." The author does not seem to understand that all of cells of life are nano machines. If you insist on a definition of a machine being a collection of gears and bolts, then you must expand your definition.
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
Nano machinery is real, it exists, it powers the world, it's called biology.
The problem is that we seem to have a hard time translating our hard won knowledge of mechanical engineering to the nano scale, I expect some time will pass before the SF visions will become a reality but I think eventually we will get there. Figure another 50 to 100 years or so?
As long as we keep thinking in terms of conventional mechanics (wheels, gears, levers, wires and so on) it's going to be slow progress because we are trying to push down the size limit on our macroscopic ingredients without a real appreciation of what you can do with molecules 'as is'.
I think at some point the 'genetic synthesis' crowd is going to meet up with the 'nano technology' crowd and that's when we'll see some real action. The first little bits of progress in that direction have already been made.
[+] [-] jimbokun|15 years ago|reply
5 to 10 years? 500 to 1000 years? 5000 to 10000 years? 5 to 10 months?
What are we basing our estimates on?
That is the author's real point. If we don't have a good enough handle on the principles necessary to make this into an engineering problem, there just isn't any sense in trying to guess when these technologies will arrive.
Unless you have some facts or data you're keeping from us.
[+] [-] bbgm|15 years ago|reply
Also, nanosystems fundamentally are at a scale when quantum properties become important, and classical, mechanical rules start breaking down, which makes things really hard.
Having said that, there are some great examples of nanosystems around, from nanoparticles, to polymer drug delivery systems to materials for PET scans and eventually scalable manufacturing of quantum dots etc. The problem is, that breakthrough is always round the corner. Nano's going to be big, but (a) it is not one technology and (b) we need to be patient cause at those scales things are hard.
[+] [-] stcredzero|15 years ago|reply
We recently discovered structures in soot we now call "Buckyballs" and "Buckytubes".
[+] [-] physcab|15 years ago|reply
But nanotechnology encompasses such a broad array of other disciplines that are primarily concerned with operating at the nano-scale. For example, anyone doing research that involves the electromagnetic spectrum (light) would be considered doing research in "nanotechnology". Those people would include: solar cell manufacturers, laser physicists, radiation specialists, electrical engineers...and so on
Hell, since nano is just a length description, ANY profession could be considered "nanotechnology". "Yes, we our car can travel 26 822 400 000 nanometers per second, its amazing"
[+] [-] listic|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paraschopra|15 years ago|reply
Granted a similar argument can be made for many other comparisons (such as camera or airplanes) but at nano-scales physics of environment plays a tremendous role. The beauty of evolution was that it is an inside-out distributed process so the physics of environment actually helped engineering ribosome.
I wonder if humans will fall back to mechanisms such as guided evolution to create other "nano-machines". Lots of effort has started being put into that direction. Just google "artificial enzymes"
[+] [-] mortenjorck|15 years ago|reply
Headlines such as the one this author has chosen strike me as unpleasantly Digg-like. Exhortations to "stop talking about it and start laughing at it" are anti-intellectual; it's a call to glib derision rather than reasoned rejection.
[+] [-] dasil003|15 years ago|reply
I think Louis C.K. captured the essence better than anyone (http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1885790,00.html)
[+] [-] fragmede|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulsb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|15 years ago|reply
Also, "Mechanical objects on microscales do not exist" is gratuitously false, we even have really simple mechanical objects (like cantilevers) on the 100nm scale now.
[+] [-] pedrocr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeteo|15 years ago|reply
Interesting. Do you have a link or paper name for that?
[+] [-] zeteo|15 years ago|reply
That's not exactly true. See, for example
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~news/releases/2005/09/14.html
for a 60 micrometers by 250 micrometers robot from 2005.
Of course, that's not nanotechnology, and the article's main point might well be valid. Still, there seems to be a good deal of exaggeration in it.
[+] [-] wihon|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reasonattlm|15 years ago|reply
Much longer refutation: http://www.rfreitas.com
[+] [-] krschultz|15 years ago|reply
http://mems.sandia.gov/gallery/images.html
[+] [-] raquo|15 years ago|reply
I think every Russian HNer laughed out loud when they saw this title. Nanotech here in Russia is a synonym of enormous and inefficient government spending on vaporware since they started considering it a "National project". To be fair, I have no idea how true it is, but it does look very much so, especially with frequent appearance in news but no details about actual results.
[+] [-] Eliezer|15 years ago|reply
I want my 60 seconds back.
[+] [-] mchouza|15 years ago|reply
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/27999
But I also want my (120) seconds back.
[+] [-] abecedarius|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akshayubhat|15 years ago|reply
Anyone who wants to read good research in nano tech can browse through this journal: http://pubs.acs.org/journal/nalefd
This is same as saying to someone working on EINACS and early computers that they are a laughing stock and nothing but huge calculators. Reminds me of an article by Scott Aaronson : "Whats taking so long Mr. Babbage" : http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=446
[+] [-] abecedarius|15 years ago|reply
You can test the OP's picture of Drexler this way considerably more easily than by studying _Nanosystems_ yourself (which is hard).
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ajdecon|15 years ago|reply
But the author here overstates his case quite a bit. "Millitech"? There are many microscale mechanical systems out there, both in the lab and in industrial applications. Accelerometers are one example; the actuated mirrors in DLP projectors are another. If there's no microtechnology out there, I know a lot of MEMS engineers who are going to be surprised to here it.
A lot of what's called nanotech now could have been called physical chemistry thirty years ago, especially a lot of the "let's put nanoparticles in it!" projects out there. But there's some pretty real nanotech out there too, even if it doesn't qualify under the self-replicating nanobots definition. One example I can think of is the work being done on nanoscale printing--not lithography, but actual physical printing of materials into nanoscale patterns. And there's some pretty cool controlled nanoparticle engineering work out there too.
[+] [-] tocomment|15 years ago|reply
Also what ever happened to Feynman's idea of building half size remote controlled arms, which we then use to build half sized of that remote controlled arms, all the way down to a very small scale? Has anyone ever tried that?
[+] [-] mechanical_fish|15 years ago|reply
Yes, you can assemble molecules with AFM. The problem with this idea is that either (a) the molecules don't stick together at temperatures much above absolute zero, or (b) they do, in which case they might be stable at useful temperatures, in which case it's better to figure out how to get them to self-assemble or to find a catalyst/enzyme that helps them self-assemble. Because your nifty molecule just isn't that nifty if it doesn't exist in quantities of order 1 mole, and 1 mole is... a lot. You just won't believe how vastly mind-bogglingly big 10^23 is.
All of which boils down to this: This essay is great, but the meat of it really is in the first paragraph. Nanotech is a euphemism for chemistry and biochemistry. It is 100% possible -- indeed, nanotech is older than any human-invented technology by many orders of magnitude, by definition, because humans are built out of "nanotech" -- but it's all just chemistry. The real question is why the word nanotechnology is so much more fashionable in grant-writing circles than the old words.
[+] [-] henrikschroder|15 years ago|reply
The author thinks this is impossible because progress is slow. That's not really an argument, but I'll agree that "just you wait and see!" isn't one either.
However, biology shows us that it's not impossible to do self-replicating "machinery" so I think we'll get there one day, but it might probably be a lot more organic and a lot less mechanical than we currently envision when we say nanotech.
[+] [-] fragmede|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nivertech|15 years ago|reply
Later in the story he fighting with bacteria and viruses, but because of the feedback of his microscopic arm, he was injured and almost killed by these tiny creatures.
[+] [-] asmithmd1|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DotSauce|15 years ago|reply
"coating one millionth of a millimetre thick – 500 times thinner than a human hair – can be applied to virtually any surface to protect it against water, dirt, bacteria, heat and UV radiation."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7125556/Liqu...
[+] [-] Dylan16807|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nextbigfuture|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tichy|15 years ago|reply
Aren't biological cells replicating nanobots? Or are they bigger than nano scale?
[+] [-] geuis|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]