Comments on: Earth Day 1970, and a high road down to molecules

By: caveat bettor

caveat bettor — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:25:14 +0000

Got it. Neither the mind nor the heart is static (and who’d want it that way?).

I think that there is an industrial bias away from some of the promising areas of molecular engineering. For instance, I was in Cornell’s School of Engineering, and saw that the Materials Science department was quite active in research, but with a narrow bent towards semiconductors.

By: Eric Drexler

Eric Drexler — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:44:46 +0000

@ caveat bettor — I’m only reporting what I read and how I reacted almost 40 years ago.

By: Eric Drexler

Eric Drexler — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:42:47 +0000

@ James Eastwood — What’s been missing is a framework that supports an engineering process like the ones we see in (for example) space systems engineering and fusion energy research. This means a balance of conceptual design and analysis, scientific research, component development, and system integration. It begins with the identification of apparently achievable objectives, then advances by progressive task breakdown, experimental investigation, design revision, and so forth.

I became very familiar with this sort of development process in my space systems work, and there is nothing like it in molecular systems engineering. That must change.

As we see in other fields of science-intensive technology development, there are roles for all the sectors that you mention — universities, national laboratories, and industries.

By: James Eastwood

James Eastwood — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:15:55 +0000

You say “The institutional framework for effective progress is not [in place].” What would such an institutional framework look like? You imply that it would have to cross or break down ” basic differences between disciplinary cultures.” Do you envision this happening at the level of universities, national laboratories, or industries?

By: caveat bettor

caveat bettor — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:34:08 +0000

I was confused by your reference to “Silent Spring”. Hasn’t that book had the unintended consequence of 10 million unnecessary child deaths due to malaria?

By: Eric Drexler

Eric Drexler — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:54:33 +0000

Chris, these cases aren't really analogous. Biomolecular systems can be used to fabricate advanced-material systems, but high-cost launch vehicles are of no use in fabricating low-cost launch vehicles. There are rapidly advancing technologies for atomically precise design and fabrication of intricate, self-assembling biomolecular systems containing thousands to millions of atoms, and this is enormous progress along a line of development that I have supported and contributed to since 1981. In addition to having immediate scientific and practical value, this research will provide a technology platform for further developments, including the integration of inorganic components to build modular molecular composite nanosystems, and of early-generation productive nanosystems, as discussed in the 2007 technology roadmap. There's interesting science to be done in a host of other areas, some of which will have practical applications that cannot be predicted today. Regarding manipulation of strong covalent solids, a good, ground-breaking example is of course Philip Moriarty's EPSRC-funded experimental program on scanning probe-driven mechanosynthesis reactions.

By: Chris Phoenix

Chris Phoenix — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:48:56 +0000

“All this was exciting and promising until it became clear that inadequate launch vehicles had nailed a ceiling on the sky that would stay in place for a generation or more.”

Eric, aren’t you worried that your emphasis on a protein pathway to molecular manufacturing, and your explicit criticism of present-day diamondoid research, might have the same effect on high-performance molecular manufacturing systems?

Suppose someone developed a system that could build protein-like structures at $1,000 per gram (~1 atto-cent per atom). This would revolutionize computers and medicine. You couldn’t do aerospace – maybe not even avionics – and energy would be problematic, as would most consumer products.

It would surely attract funding by the ton, and molecular manufacturing researchers en masse… and might draw enough attention away from covalent solids to delay large-scale product development (including fast inexpensive nanofactories) by years or even a decade.

Five years ago, focusing on protein may have been politically necessary. I’m not sure it is necessary anymore. And it may be wise to remind people that a protein-based system, while impressive by today’s standards, will represent only a fraction of the capability of covalent solid systems that can place an atom for 10 yoctocents, and aren’t limited in speed by fluid drag, much less (ugh) diffusion, and have strength and stiffness derived from dense covalent bonds (what is that, an order of magnitude better than protein? Two?)

Chris