From the monthly archives:

January 2010

Self assembly and nanomachines:
Complexity, motion, and computational control

January 28, 2010

A commenter on the previous post raised several important issues, and my reply grew into this post. The comment is here, and my reply follows:

 

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Self-assembling nanostructures:
Building the building blocks

January 25, 2010

This post is prompted by a set of interrelated advances in chemistry that hold great promise for advancing the art of atomically precise fabrication. In this post, I’ll describe an emerging class of modular synthesis methods for making a diverse set of small, complex molecular building blocks.
The road to complex self-assembled nanosystems starts with stable [...]

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Boronate esters, Suzuki coupling,
self-assembly, design software, etc.

January 24, 2010

I’ve been exploring some recent developments in chemical synthesis and self-assembly that suggest attractive possibilities for engineering robust self-assembling molecular systems. Boronate esters are involved in two ways.
Two days ago, I sat down to write about this, but then I read further into the literature, and learned substantially more. Yesterday, another cycle of the [...]

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Why fusion won’t provide power
   (at a reasonable cost)

January 20, 2010

The greatest problem with fusion power is rarely mentioned and scarcely on the research agenda: capital cost. When I discussed the problem earlier, in “Fusion Power: A New Way to Boil Water”, I hadn’t seen this quietly damning report, which I think is worth quoting:

Issues and R&D needs
for commercial fusion energy
An interim report of the
ARIES [...]

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The importance of seeing what isn’t there

January 17, 2010

The Edge Annual Question — 2010 —
The Edge Annual Question — 2010 asks “How is the Internet changing the way you think?”, with answers by (to borrow from the Edge description) “an array of world-class scientists, artists, and creative thinkers” that includes technology analyst Nicholas Carr, social software guru Clay Shirky, science historian George Dyson, [...]

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Templates for atomically precise
metal-oxide nanostructures

January 13, 2010

The cover of Science features atomically precise inorganic nanostructures, polyoxometalates (POMs), that form by means of atomically precise templates. The outer rings of these structures contain 150 molybdenum atoms.
POMs are a diverse class of nanoscale metal-oxide structures with characteristics that make them remarkably attractive as potential components for self-assembled composite nanosystems.
These characteristics include:

Atomically precise [...]

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The Wall Street Journal on Feynman,
Drexler, History, and the Future

January 9, 2010

The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday, “Feynman and the Futurists”, about Feynman’s ideas, mine, how the nanotechnology bandwagon got rolling, and how the band got thrown off the wagon — and then, out of the shadows, the NRC report and why the U.S. government should implement the NRC’s recommendations.

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Molecular Manufacturing:
The NRC study and its recommendations

January 7, 2010

Part 6 of a series prompted by the recent 50th anniversary of Feynman’s historic talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”. This is arguably the most important post of the series, or of this blog to date.
Topics:
— The most credible study of molecular manufacturing to date
— The study’s recommendations for Federal research support
— The [...]

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Open comment thread for
“Molecular Manufacturing:
 The NRC study and its recommendations”

January 7, 2010

Comments on “Molecular Manufacturing: The NRC study and its recommendations” are invited below.

 

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Evolution: The concept and how we talk about it

January 3, 2010

Note: I’m in the middle of writing a series on the history and prospects of advanced nanotechnology, prompted by the recent 50th anniversary of Feynman’s historic talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”. The next will discuss what the U.S. National Research Council has said about advanced molecular manufacturing, including its recommendations.

I’ve been asked [...]

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