A Tiny Idea

What tiny idea promises to revolutionize society? We have to think very small to see the possibilities of nanotechnology. This presentation will help show what nanotechnology is and the benefits it promises. A description of current developments and the goal of nanoresearchers will be shown. Finally, the promise of nanotechnology in manufacturing and medicine will be explored.

The chief concern of nanotechnology is the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules. In 1959, Physicist Richard Feynman first opened the door to the new science in a talk he gave at the California Institute of Technology. His talk planted the idea that there were no physical laws preventing work on an atomic scale. This scale is measured in nanometers, one billionth of a meter. Nanoresearch is focused on precision at less than one hundred nanometers or about the size of a virus. A famous example of such precision was achieved in 1990 by IBM’s D.M. Eigler and E.K. Schweizer. A scanning tunneling microscope was used to position xenon atoms on nickel into their company’s logo; titled, "The Beginning".

This precise positioning is a basic test of nanotechnology. Nature works at this level already. Cells are like factories programmed by DNA to produce proteins and build a human being. Biotechnologists routinely tinker with DNA and prod nature into doing what they wish. Yet biotechnology is restricted to working with organic material. Another related area, lithography has shown results at the atomic scale. Dustin Carr and Harold Craighead of Cornell University were thinking small when they used electron beam lithography to carve this ten micron long "nanoguitar" out of silicon in 1997.

Each of the six strings are about 100 atoms wide. But carving from a single homogenous block is not the same as building a device atom by atom.

Nanoreaserchers envision building atomic scale mechanical devices or nanobots that could replicate and mass produce themselves. These nanobots in turn could intelligently go about building and repairing our world and ourselves. In his 1992 book Nanosystems, Eric Drexler first proposed the Assembler. As Kai Wu describes in his web page Prometheus Returns the basic assembler will have a ". . . manipulating arm and a nanocomputer." Drexler illustrates what the arm might look like in the web page A Fine Motion Controller for Molecular Assembly.

This device could manipulate one or more atoms at a time and has fewer than three thousand atoms itself. According to J. Storrs Hall’s web page Overview of Nanotechnology, the entire assembler with arms a computer and interchangeable arm tips would be smaller than a bacterium. Nanotechnology Magazine’s web page What is Nanotechnology suggests that the first assembler may only be five to fifteen years away.

Once the first assembler is built a revolution will begin in manufacturing and medicine. Nanobots must first be able to replicate themselves out of cheap and abundant raw materials. Then they will slowly evolve to perform more complex manufacturing and medical procedures restricted only by the level of engineering, programming and system design involved. Tom Carver describes the evolution in his web page The Easy Nanotechnology. He writes how nanobots will start out immobilized in factories producing homogenous specialized goods such as strong fibers. It will be quite awhile before they are sophisticated enough to build a toaster or do cell surgery. But that day will come. Imagine, as in What is Nanotechnology, an assembler that looks like a microwave oven and uses air, soil or raw carbon to make your favorite pizza. Nanobots would produce goods locally out of inexpensive materials or even waste. This would be no small change for manufacturing and transportation. There will be more abundance and less drudgery. Nanobots would do all the dirty work including running around the house digesting dirt. They could recycle pollution and transform the planet. After cleaning up here they could be used to terra-form other planets like Mars.

A nice long lifespan would make a trip to Mars seem more feasible. What is Nanotechnology suggests that nanobots could roam through our bloodstream removing bacteria and viruses. Others could remove plaque from arteries or attack cancer cells. DNA and cell repair machines ". . . could stop or reverse the aging process." One vision by Brian Wowk at the web page Nanomedicine Art Gallery shows "Cell Repair Machines III" designed in 1988.

The artist envisions a nanobot with one thousand manipulators controlled by a central processor and propelled by cilia.

Will the long life in material comfort that nanotechnology brings free people from hard work? It depends on how the great many people who will be needed feel about all the programming, engineering and system design involved.

Research in nanotechnology has made significant progress in the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules. A simple computer controlled assembler or nanobot may be only a few years away. How will society react when self-replicating nanobots begin to revolutionize the world? People will probably embrace each slow new step as they reap it’s benefits. Maybe in a few decades they will look back and think of this time as the dark ages. They’ll take for granted their microwave like replicators producing whatever they want at will. They might feel sorry for us who live with all our ailments for only seventy or eighty years.

Works Cited

Feynman, Richard P. "There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom." http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html

Eigler, D.M. and Schweizer, E.K., “The Beginning” http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/atomo.html

Carr, Dustin and Craighead, Harold “nanoquitar” http://www.news.cornell.edu/science/July97/guitar.ltb.html 1997

Wu, Kai “Prometheus Returns” http://www.englib.cornell.edu/Scitech/s95/ntek.html

Drexler, Eric “A Fine Motion Controller for Molecular Assembly” http://www.imm.org/Parts/Parts2.html , http://www.imm.org/Images/fineMotionUL.jpg

Hall , J. Storrs. “Overview of Nanotechnology” http://nanotech.rutgers.edu/nanotech/intro.html

“What is Nanotechnology” Nanotechnology Magazine http://nanozine.com/WHATNANO.HTM

Craver, Tom R. “The Easy Nanotechnology” Nanotechnology Magazine http://nanozine.com/WHATNANO.HTM

Wowk, Brian “Cell Repair Machines III” Forsight Institue - Nanomedicine Art Gallery http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Gallery/Captions/Image105.html

2000 by Ronald Fife