Comments on: Myths through mythquotation

By: Michael G.R.

Michael G.R. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:09:12 +0000

Now if only Slashdot would pick up this clarification…

By: Chris Phoenix

Chris Phoenix — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:00:30 +0000

There’s no such thing as a universal assembler. In fact, the term (in its singular form) doesn’t even appear in Engines of Creation. It’s another subtle but important misquote. What Drexler meant, if you read closely, seems to be that a sufficiently large collection of assemblers, each doing a different kind of chemistry, could collectively come close to doing any chemistry you might want.

I think the concept you’re looking for is an assembler that can produce everything in a reasonably large and easily-specified design space. For example, an assembler that could make any kind of buckytube up to (30, 30), including steps and junctions, would be quite useful. (IMO, something that general would almost certainly have to be computer-controlled, increasing its flexibility and usefulness.)

I know Drexler likes non-computer-controlled mills better than computer-controlled general-purpose assemblers. I think mills are advanced optimizations – it will be a lot harder to get parts closure with mills than with computer-controlled assemblers. And, as I’ve explained previously, computer control does not require computation for every atom, so it can (at least in theory) be efficient enough to build kg-scale nanofactories with.

Chris

By: Eivind

Eivind — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:25:22 +0000

I think most of the people who speak along those lines are aware that there’s multiple technologies in daily use today that are undoubtedly both “real” and “nanotechnology”, and that it’s a continous function, not two distinct worlds.

But for better or worse, many people make little distinction between “nanotechnology” which we undoubtedly have today, and atomically precise universal assemblers, which we do not have today. (but which one can perhaps reasonably argue that we’re *closer* to today than at any point in the past)

It’s a silly statement at core though, because *all* future technologies are closer today than they ever where in the past, that’s just a result of us generally making progress all over the map.