K. Eric Drexler
Encyclopedia
Dr. Kim Eric Drexler is an American
engineer best known for popularizing the potential of molecular nanotechnology
(MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s.
His 1991 doctoral thesis at MIT was revised and published as
the book "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation" (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers
award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992. He also coined the term grey goo
.
in the early 1970s. His response in his first year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
was to seek out someone who was working on extraterrestrial resources. He found Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University
, a physicist famous for a strong focus on particle accelerator
s and his landmark work on the concepts of space colonization
. Drexler was involved in NASA
summer studies in 1975 and 1976. Besides working summers for O'Neill building mass driver
prototypes, he delivered papers at the first three Space Manufacturing conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were co-authored with Keith Henson
, and patents were issued on both subjects, vapor phase fabrication and space radiators.
Drexler participated in NASA summer studies on space colonies in 1975 and 1976. He fabricated metal films a few tens of nanometers thick on a wax support to demonstrate the potentials of high performance solar sails. He was active in space politics, helping the L5 Society
defeat the Moon Treaty
in 1980.
During the late 1970s, he began to develop ideas about molecular nanotechnology
(MNT). In 1979, Drexler encountered Richard Feynman
's provocative 1959 talk There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom
. The term nanotechnology
was coined by the Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi
in 1974 to describe the precision manufacture of materials with nanometer tolerances, and was unknowingly appropriated by Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology
to describe what later became known as molecular nanotechnology
(MNT). In that book, he proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler" which would be able to build a copy of itself and of other items of arbitrary complexity. He also first published the term "grey goo
" to describe what might happen if a hypothetical self-replicating molecular nanotechnology went out of control.
Drexler holds three degrees from MIT http://alum.mit.edu. He received his B.S.
in Interdisciplinary Sciences in 1977 and his M.S. in 1979 in Astro/Aerospace Engineering
with a Master's thesis titled "Design of a High Performance Solar Sail System,." In 1991 he earned a Ph.D.
under the auspices of the MIT Media Lab
(formally, the Media Arts and Sciences Section, School of Architecture and Planning). His Ph.D. work was the first doctoral degree on the topic of molecular nanotechnology and (after some editing) his thesis, "Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation," was published as "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation" (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.
Drexler and Christine Peterson, at that time husband and wife, founded the Foresight Institute
in 1986 with the mission of "Preparing for nanotechnology.” Drexler and Peterson ended their 21-year marriage in 2002. Drexler is no longer a member of the Foresight Institute.
In August 2005 Drexler joined Nanorex, a molecular engineering software company based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
, to serve as the company's Chief Technical Advisor.http://www.nanoengineer-1.com/mambo/http://www.nanoengineer-1.com/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=73 Nanorex's nanoENGINEER-1 software was reportedly able to simulate a hypothetical differential gear design in "a snap". According to Nanorex's web site, an open source
molecular design program is currently slated for release in Fall 2007.
In 2006, Drexler married Rosa Wang, a former investment banker who works with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
on improving the social capital markets.
in a 2001 Scientific American
article. Smalley first argued that "fat fingers" made MNT impossible. He later argued that nanomachines would have to resemble chemical enzymes more than Drexler's assemblers and could only work in water. Drexler maintained that both were straw man
arguments, and in the case of enzymes, Prof. Klibanov wrote in 1994, "...using an enzyme in organic solvents eliminates several obstacles. . . " http://crnano.org/Debate.htm) Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond, but in December 2003, Chemical and Engineering news carried a 4 part debate. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8148/8148counterpoint.html Ray Kurzweil spends four pages in his book 'The Singularity Is Near' [pp 236-238] to showing that Richard Smalley's arguments are not valid, and disputing them point by point. Kurzweil ends by stating that Drexler's visions are very practicable and even happening already.
One of the barriers to achieving molecular nanotechnology is the lack of an efficient way to create machines on a molecular/atomic scale. One of Drexler's early ideas was an "assembler", a nanomachine that would comprise an arm and a computer that could be programmed to build more nanomachines. If an assembler could be built, it might then build a copy of itself, and thus potentially be useful for efficient mass production of nanomachines. But the lack of a way to first build an assembler remains the sine qua non
obstacle to achieving this vision.
A second difficulty in reaching molecular nanotechnology is design. Hand design of a gear or bearing at the level of atoms is a grueling task. While Drexler, Merkle
and others have created a few designs of simple parts, no comprehensive design effort for anything approaching the complexity of a Model T Ford
has been attempted.
A third difficulty in achieving molecular technology is separating successful trials from failures, and elucidating the failure mechanisms of the failures. Unlike Darwinian evolution
, which proceeds by random variations in ensembles of organisms combined with deterministic reproduction/extinction as a selection process to achieve great complexity after billions of years (a set of mechanisms that Richard Dawkins
has referred to as a "blind watchmaker"), deliberate design and building of nanoscale mechanisms requires a means other than reproduction/extinction to winnow successes from failures. Such means are difficult to provide (and presently non-existent) for anything other than small assemblages of atoms viewable by an AFM
or STM
.
Thus, even in the latest report A Matter of Size: Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative put out by the National Academies Press in December 2006, (roughly twenty years after Engines of Creation was published) no clear way forward toward molecular nanotechnology is seen, as per the conclusion on page 108 of that report: "Although theoretical calculations can be made today, the eventually attainable
range of chemical reaction cycles, error rates, speed of operation, and thermodynamic
efficiencies of such bottom-up manufacturing systems cannot be reliably
predicted at this time. Thus, the eventually attainable perfection and complexity of
manufactured products, while they can be calculated in theory, cannot be predicted
with confidence. Finally, the optimum research paths that might lead to systems
which greatly exceed the thermodynamic efficiencies and other capabilities of
biological systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Research funding that
is based on the ability of investigators to produce experimental demonstrations
that link to abstract models and guide long-term vision is most appropriate to
achieve this goal."
In 2008 UK government funding of 1.5 million pounds over six years was provided for research working towards mechanized mechanosynthesis. The project leader is Professor Moriarty of the University of Nottingham in partnership with the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing http://www.imm.org/, amongst others. http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/G007837/1
book The Diamond Age
as one of the heroes of a future world where nanotechnology is ubiquitous.
In the science fiction novel Newton's Wake by Ken Macleod a 'drexler' is a nanotech assembler of pretty much anything that can fit in the volume of the particular machine - socks to starships.
Drexler is also mentioned in the science fiction book Decipher
by Stel Pavlou, his book is mentioned as one of the starting points of the nanomachine construction, as well as giving a better understanding of the way carbon 60
was to be applied.
James Rollins references Drexler's Engines of Creation in his novel Excavation, using his theory of a molecular machine in two sections as a possible explanation for the mysterious "Substance Z" in the story.
Drexler gets a mention in the late Dr. Timothy Leary
's Design for Dying in the "Mutation" section, briefly detailing the 8 Circuit Consciousness model. (pg. 91).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
engineer best known for popularizing the potential of molecular nanotechnology
Molecular nanotechnology
Molecular nanotechnology is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis. This is distinct from nanoscale materials...
(MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s.
His 1991 doctoral thesis at MIT was revised and published as
the book "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation" (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers
Association of American Publishers
The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP has more than 300 members, including most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly...
award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992. He also coined the term grey goo
Grey goo
Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves, a scenario known as ecophagy .Self-replicating machines of the macroscopic variety were originally...
.
Life and work
K. Eric Drexler was very strongly influenced by ideas on Limits to GrowthLimits to Growth
The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book modeling the consequences of a rapidly growing world population and finite resource supplies, commissioned by the Club of Rome. Its authors were Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to...
in the early 1970s. His response in his first year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
was to seek out someone who was working on extraterrestrial resources. He found Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, a physicist famous for a strong focus on particle accelerator
Particle accelerator
A particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator. There are two basic types: electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.In...
s and his landmark work on the concepts of space colonization
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
. Drexler was involved in NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
summer studies in 1975 and 1976. Besides working summers for O'Neill building mass driver
Mass driver
A mass driver or electromagnetic catapult is a proposed method of non-rocket spacelaunch which would use a linear motor to accelerate and catapult payloads up to high speeds. All existing and contemplated mass drivers use coils of wire energized by electricity to make electromagnets. Sequential...
prototypes, he delivered papers at the first three Space Manufacturing conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were co-authored with Keith Henson
Keith Henson
Howard Keith Henson is an American electrical engineer and writer on life extension, cryonics, memetics and evolutionary psychology....
, and patents were issued on both subjects, vapor phase fabrication and space radiators.
Drexler participated in NASA summer studies on space colonies in 1975 and 1976. He fabricated metal films a few tens of nanometers thick on a wax support to demonstrate the potentials of high performance solar sails. He was active in space politics, helping the L5 Society
L5 Society
The L5 Society was founded in 1975 by Carolyn and Keith Henson to promote the space colony ideas of Dr Gerard K. O'Neill.The name comes from the and Lagrangian points in the Earth-Moon system proposed as locations for the huge rotating space habitats that Dr O'Neill envisioned...
defeat the Moon Treaty
Moon Treaty
The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, better known as the Moon Treaty or Moon Agreement, is an international treaty that turns jurisdiction of all celestial bodies over to the international community...
in 1980.
During the late 1970s, he began to develop ideas about molecular nanotechnology
Molecular nanotechnology
Molecular nanotechnology is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis. This is distinct from nanoscale materials...
(MNT). In 1979, Drexler encountered Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
's provocative 1959 talk There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom
There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom
There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom is the title of a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959...
. The term nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
was coined by the Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi
Norio Taniguchi
was a professor of Tokyo University of Science. He coined the term nano-technology in 1974 to describe semiconductor processes such as thin film deposition and ion beam milling exhibiting characteristic control on the order of a nanometer: "Nano-technology' mainly consists of the processing of...
in 1974 to describe the precision manufacture of materials with nanometer tolerances, and was unknowingly appropriated by Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology
Engines of Creation
Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology is a 1986 molecular nanotechnology book written by K. Eric Drexler with a foreword by Marvin Minsky. An updated version was released in 2007...
to describe what later became known as molecular nanotechnology
Molecular nanotechnology
Molecular nanotechnology is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis. This is distinct from nanoscale materials...
(MNT). In that book, he proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler" which would be able to build a copy of itself and of other items of arbitrary complexity. He also first published the term "grey goo
Grey goo
Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves, a scenario known as ecophagy .Self-replicating machines of the macroscopic variety were originally...
" to describe what might happen if a hypothetical self-replicating molecular nanotechnology went out of control.
Drexler holds three degrees from MIT http://alum.mit.edu. He received his B.S.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
in Interdisciplinary Sciences in 1977 and his M.S. in 1979 in Astro/Aerospace Engineering
Aerospace engineering
Aerospace engineering is the primary branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is divided into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering...
with a Master's thesis titled "Design of a High Performance Solar Sail System,." In 1991 he earned a Ph.D.
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
under the auspices of the MIT Media Lab
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a laboratory of MIT School of Architecture and Planning. Devoted to research projects at the convergence of design, multimedia and technology, the Media Lab has been widely popularized since the 1990s by business and technology publications such as Wired and Red Herring for a...
(formally, the Media Arts and Sciences Section, School of Architecture and Planning). His Ph.D. work was the first doctoral degree on the topic of molecular nanotechnology and (after some editing) his thesis, "Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation," was published as "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation" (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.
Drexler and Christine Peterson, at that time husband and wife, founded the Foresight Institute
Foresight Institute
The Foresight Institute is a Palo Alto, California-based nonprofit organization for promoting transformative technologies. They sponsor conferences on molecular nanotechnology, publish reports, and produce a newsletter....
in 1986 with the mission of "Preparing for nanotechnology.” Drexler and Peterson ended their 21-year marriage in 2002. Drexler is no longer a member of the Foresight Institute.
In August 2005 Drexler joined Nanorex, a molecular engineering software company based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Bloomfield Hills is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan, northwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,869...
, to serve as the company's Chief Technical Advisor.http://www.nanoengineer-1.com/mambo/http://www.nanoengineer-1.com/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=73 Nanorex's nanoENGINEER-1 software was reportedly able to simulate a hypothetical differential gear design in "a snap". According to Nanorex's web site, an open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
molecular design program is currently slated for release in Fall 2007.
In 2006, Drexler married Rosa Wang, a former investment banker who works with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public is a nonprofit organization based in Arlington, VA, supporting the field of social entrepreneurship. Ashoka was founded by Bill Drayton in 1981 to identify and support leading social entrepreneurs through a Social Venture Capital approach with the goal of...
on improving the social capital markets.
Controversy
Drexler's work on nanotechnology was criticized as naive by Nobel Prize winner Richard SmalleyRichard Smalley
Richard Errett Smalley was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, in Houston, Texas...
in a 2001 Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
article. Smalley first argued that "fat fingers" made MNT impossible. He later argued that nanomachines would have to resemble chemical enzymes more than Drexler's assemblers and could only work in water. Drexler maintained that both were straw man
Straw man
A straw man is a component of an argument and is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position, twisting his words or by means of [false] assumptions...
arguments, and in the case of enzymes, Prof. Klibanov wrote in 1994, "...using an enzyme in organic solvents eliminates several obstacles. . . " http://crnano.org/Debate.htm) Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond, but in December 2003, Chemical and Engineering news carried a 4 part debate. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8148/8148counterpoint.html Ray Kurzweil spends four pages in his book 'The Singularity Is Near' [pp 236-238] to showing that Richard Smalley's arguments are not valid, and disputing them point by point. Kurzweil ends by stating that Drexler's visions are very practicable and even happening already.
One of the barriers to achieving molecular nanotechnology is the lack of an efficient way to create machines on a molecular/atomic scale. One of Drexler's early ideas was an "assembler", a nanomachine that would comprise an arm and a computer that could be programmed to build more nanomachines. If an assembler could be built, it might then build a copy of itself, and thus potentially be useful for efficient mass production of nanomachines. But the lack of a way to first build an assembler remains the sine qua non
Sine qua non
Sine qua non or condicio sine qua non refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient...
obstacle to achieving this vision.
A second difficulty in reaching molecular nanotechnology is design. Hand design of a gear or bearing at the level of atoms is a grueling task. While Drexler, Merkle
Ralph Merkle
Ralph C. Merkle is a researcher in public key cryptography, and more recently a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology and cryonics...
and others have created a few designs of simple parts, no comprehensive design effort for anything approaching the complexity of a Model T Ford
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...
has been attempted.
A third difficulty in achieving molecular technology is separating successful trials from failures, and elucidating the failure mechanisms of the failures. Unlike Darwinian evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, which proceeds by random variations in ensembles of organisms combined with deterministic reproduction/extinction as a selection process to achieve great complexity after billions of years (a set of mechanisms that Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
has referred to as a "blind watchmaker"), deliberate design and building of nanoscale mechanisms requires a means other than reproduction/extinction to winnow successes from failures. Such means are difficult to provide (and presently non-existent) for anything other than small assemblages of atoms viewable by an AFM
Atomic force microscope
Atomic force microscopy or scanning force microscopy is a very high-resolution type of scanning probe microscopy, with demonstrated resolution on the order of fractions of a nanometer, more than 1000 times better than the optical diffraction limit...
or STM
Scanning tunneling microscope
A scanning tunneling microscope is an instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer , the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. For an STM, good resolution is considered to be 0.1 nm lateral resolution and...
.
Thus, even in the latest report A Matter of Size: Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative put out by the National Academies Press in December 2006, (roughly twenty years after Engines of Creation was published) no clear way forward toward molecular nanotechnology is seen, as per the conclusion on page 108 of that report: "Although theoretical calculations can be made today, the eventually attainable
range of chemical reaction cycles, error rates, speed of operation, and thermodynamic
efficiencies of such bottom-up manufacturing systems cannot be reliably
predicted at this time. Thus, the eventually attainable perfection and complexity of
manufactured products, while they can be calculated in theory, cannot be predicted
with confidence. Finally, the optimum research paths that might lead to systems
which greatly exceed the thermodynamic efficiencies and other capabilities of
biological systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Research funding that
is based on the ability of investigators to produce experimental demonstrations
that link to abstract models and guide long-term vision is most appropriate to
achieve this goal."
In 2008 UK government funding of 1.5 million pounds over six years was provided for research working towards mechanized mechanosynthesis. The project leader is Professor Moriarty of the University of Nottingham in partnership with the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing http://www.imm.org/, amongst others. http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/ViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/G007837/1
Books by Eric Drexler
- Engines of CreationEngines of CreationEngines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology is a 1986 molecular nanotechnology book written by K. Eric Drexler with a foreword by Marvin Minsky. An updated version was released in 2007...
(1986)- Available online at e-drexler.com
- Available online in Russian as МАШИНЫ СОЗДАНИЯ: Грядущая эра нанотехнологии
- Available online in Chinese as 创造的发动机
- Available online in Italian as MOTORI DI CREAZIONE: L’era prossima della nanotecnologia
- Unbounding the Future (1991; with Christine Peterson and Gayle Pergamit) (ISBN 0-688-12573-5)
- Available online with free download at Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution
- Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992)
- Sample chapters and a table of contents are available online at e.drexler.com
- Drexler's doctoral thesis, Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation, an earlier version of the text that became Nanosystems, is available online
- Engines of Creation 2.0: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology - Updated and Expanded, K. Eric Drexler, 647 pages, (February 2007)
Books and articles about Eric Drexler
- Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition by Ed Regis, 1990. ISBN 0-201-56751-2
- "The Creator": Interview with Eric Drexler by Michael Berry, 1991
- Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology by Ed Regis, 1995. ISBN 0-316-73852-2
- "The Incredible Shrinking World of Eric Drexler": Red Herring Interview by Anthony B. Perkins August 1, 1995
- "The Incredible Shrinking Man: K. Eric Drexler was the godfather of nanotechnology. But the MIT prodigy who dreamed up molecular machines was shoved aside by big science - and now he's an industry outcast." Ed Regis, Wired Magazine, Issue 12.10, October 2004
In science fiction
Drexler is mentioned in the science fictionScience fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
book The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age
The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a postcyberpunk novel by Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a science fiction bildungsroman, focused on a young girl named Nell, and set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of...
as one of the heroes of a future world where nanotechnology is ubiquitous.
In the science fiction novel Newton's Wake by Ken Macleod a 'drexler' is a nanotech assembler of pretty much anything that can fit in the volume of the particular machine - socks to starships.
Drexler is also mentioned in the science fiction book Decipher
Decipher (novel)
Decipher is a speculative fiction novel by Stel Pavlou , published in 2001 in England by Simon and Schuster and 2002 in the United States by St. Martin's Press. It is published in many languages with some significant title changes...
by Stel Pavlou, his book is mentioned as one of the starting points of the nanomachine construction, as well as giving a better understanding of the way carbon 60
Fullerene
A fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and they resemble the balls used in association football. Cylindrical ones are called carbon nanotubes or buckytubes...
was to be applied.
James Rollins references Drexler's Engines of Creation in his novel Excavation, using his theory of a molecular machine in two sections as a possible explanation for the mysterious "Substance Z" in the story.
Drexler gets a mention in the late Dr. Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. During a time when drugs like LSD and psilocybin were legal, Leary conducted experiments at Harvard University under the Harvard Psilocybin Project, resulting in the Concord Prison...
's Design for Dying in the "Mutation" section, briefly detailing the 8 Circuit Consciousness model. (pg. 91).
See also
- Foresight InstituteForesight InstituteThe Foresight Institute is a Palo Alto, California-based nonprofit organization for promoting transformative technologies. They sponsor conferences on molecular nanotechnology, publish reports, and produce a newsletter....
(Drexler is no longer with Foresight Institute) - Robert FreitasRobert FreitasRobert A. Freitas Jr. is a Senior Research Fellow, one of four researchers at the nonprofit foundation Institute for Molecular Manufacturing in Palo Alto, California. He holds a 1974 Bachelor's degree majoring in both physics and psychology from Harvey Mudd College, and a 1978 Juris Doctor degree...
- NanomedicineNanomedicineNanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology. Nanomedicine ranges from the medical applications of nanomaterials, to nanoelectronic biosensors, and even possible future applications of molecular nanotechnology. Current problems for nanomedicine involve understanding the issues related...
advocate - Ralph MerkleRalph MerkleRalph C. Merkle is a researcher in public key cryptography, and more recently a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology and cryonics...
- nanotechnologist - Richard FeynmanRichard FeynmanRichard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
- physicistPhysicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole... - Gerard O'NeillGerard O'NeillGerard Kitchen O'Neill was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. Later, he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver...
- space advocateSpace advocacySpace advocacy can be described as the general position supporting, pleading or arguing for the idea or cause of space exploration and settlements... - Chemical vapor depositionChemical vapor depositionChemical vapor deposition is a chemical process used to produce high-purity, high-performance solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films. In a typical CVD process, the wafer is exposed to one or more volatile precursors, which react and/or...
, a type of "vapor phase fabrication"
External links
- e-drexler.com, Drexler's own web site, includes:
- Who's Who in the Nanospace