I’ll be giving a keynote talk for the opening plenary session of WORLDCOMP’09, the 2009 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing. The conference, to be held July 13–16 in Las Vegas, is the largest annual gathering of researchers in computer science, computer engineering and applied computing.
In my keynote, I’ll describe critical needs for advanced computing in developing advanced nanotechnologies. These range from specific improvements in modeling and design-space search to the development of integrated systems that support concept development, design, simulation, and process specification for multidisciplinary nanosystems engineering. This should be a good opportunity to meet researchers who want to discuss what needs to be done next.
Here’s the abstract:
Advanced Nanotechnology:
Advanced Computing on the Critical Path
Dr. K. Eric Drexler
The long-standing objective for advanced nanotechnology is to enable the fabrication of atomically precise, highly functional products on a practical basis. Laboratory research is laying the foundations for the necessary series of advances in nanofabrication, but inadequate computational tools hinder progress. As nanotechnology evolves into nanosystems engineering, there is an increasingly urgent need for domain-specific design-oriented software. Among the requirements for this are multiscale modeling to unify the design of molecular and macroscale systems, and in particular, expansion and unification of diverse tools at the molecular end of the spectrum. This will require the integration and invention of diverse software tools, and some problems will require massive computational power. In the coming years, scientific investigation and discovery will remain crucial, but the pace of progress will increasingly be set by the power and limitations of computational tools for nanosystems engineering.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Dr. Drexler,
Do you have a list of specific requirements for improvements to software, and for new software functionality for computational tools for nanotechnology? Publishing such a list would be a first step in enlisting the open-source software community in developing the needed tools. The list could act as a first cut at a list of open-source software project proposals. A project list in turn would provide a way for open-source developers looking for interesting work to see how their knowledge and skills could be applied to some of these problems, which would expand the enlistment of developers beyond the set of developers who are aware of and already interested in the development of nanotechnology.
Bruce,
Yes, this makes good sense. Although I don’t have an explicit list to post at present, compiling one would certainly be valuable, and I’ll see what I can do.
In connection with this, some of the tasks would involve extensions for existing open-source projects, and I’d welcome advice on the etiquette of a third party (me) recommending that new contributors step forward with offers to do this sort of targeted work.
Eric,
Sorry to take so long in replying; I only just recently found your reply to my comment. Your question on etiquette has two answers, depending on whether you’re asking for additional features to an existing project, or an extension that would effectively be a new project. In the former case, if the project has an email forum, a polite request, with some explanation of the need for the feature and why it would benefit the nanotech community should be sent to the forum. If it doesn’t have a forum but does have an issue tracking system, then you should submit a feature request issue with the same sort of information.
Developers typically request to be involved in project development; if you know developers who could bring specific domain knowledge to a project, they can volunteer themselves. It might be better if you have an entire team in mind to have them create a new project (see below), with dependencies on other projects tracked as part of the project’s requirements.
In the latter case, where you are essentially creating a new project, it’s a little more complicated. A new project needs to have a developer who will be the project admin; I think the best way to deal with this is to find a software developer who is in the nanotech community or is an interested observer, and ask that she be responsible for the project. Obviously you’d want to ask a person who has some experience in the type of software that the project will develop, preferably someone who has run an open source project before.
If you’d like to continue this discussion, please send me an email; that way I’ll respond in a more timely fashion than I did this time.
Bruce
Dr. Drexler,
I listened to your talk at the conference and it was very impressive and informative.
Thus, I was wondering if you could post the slides on this web or if you could provide them to me (jlee1112.at.yahoo.com) if posting is not approppriate.
I would like to take a closer look at them to learn and ponder more in depths.
Thanks and Regards,
John.
Dear Dr. Drexler:
As John said, the keynote that you kindly delivered at worldcomp was not only impressive and informative but also highly thought-provoking. Many attendees also felt that the talk was inspiring. It would be most helpful if you would consider posting your scheduled future presentations (date, time, location) somewhere on your web site for those who would like to attend your talks.
Once again, thank you for the outstanding keynote you delivered last week.
Hamid