Dominus Paradoxum

What, in your opinion, are the chances that nanotechnology is likely to work and/or achieve what its proponents claim for it? And by 'nanotechnology', of course, I mean Drexlerian nanotechnology, also known as molecular manufacturing. Please, no ad hominem attacks on Drexler, just your view on the workability of his proposals, especially as they were put foward in Nanosystems.

alek0

Why do you consider that as nanotechnology? That is certainly not considered as nanotechnology in scientific community, and there are plenty of examples of nanotechnology (non-Drexlerian) which are not only feasible but have also been achieved. For example, there are no nanobots in bloodstream hunting for cancer cells. On the other hand, selective killing of cancer cells using nanoparticle drug delivery is perfectly feasible and lots of methods shown to be promising are under development.

Starboy

I think that some of the nano fringe are getting far too much press. Nano technology is here. Will there be nano factories and doctors and all the rest of the fantastic stuff claimed? Probably not. That is not to say that nano technology will not play a role in medicine and manufacturing, but this is an easy one because it already does. For those of us who remember when a computer was a big room full of equipment, it is obvious that nano technology is here. I've got a PDA that has many times the computing power of the IBM 360 and Univac 1108 on which I learned to program and my PDA is out of date.

Starboy

Elvithriel

There is not much difference between current nanotechnology and "Drexlerian nanotechnology". Just different levels of development.

The stuff Eric Drexler talks about will most likely be reality in the next 20-30 years.

Remember, You can't use the last 50 years of progress as way to predict the next 50 years of advancment.

64kb of RAM is enough for anyone. Right?

Wounded King

So what was that then if not a prediction for the next 50 years of development? Or does that not count being based on something other than the prvious 50 years of development, quite what it is based on becomes the issue then of course .

Do people feel that useful drexlerian nanotechnology when/if it comes is going to be biological or mechanical or a mixture of both?

Jayjay

So can anyone briefly sum up what's the difference between Drexlerian and "regular" nanotechnology exactly to those of us who are uninitiated?

Wounded King

As I understand it drexlerian nanotechnology is largely concerned with the production of nano assemblers and nano disassemblers. These would be nanoscale machines capable of manipulating individual atoms in order to produce any conceivable arrangement, and effectively allow you to build or take apart anything from the right constituent atoms.

General nanotechnology simply means anything which involves manipulation at the sub micron scale. So an awful lot of molecular biology and biochemistry would fall into this category, as would a lot of physics and chemistry.

Demosthenes

The problem is in the popular media, when they quote "nanotechnology" there is often some confusion between which kind they're talking about. They're talking about the today's nanotechnology but they thought that they were really talking about the Drexlerian type.

There is indeed a significant difference between the two. Drexlerian nanotechnology is essentially mechanical manipulation of atoms and molecular to achieve a near perfect atomic control over any conceivable structures. The today's nanotechnology is largely chemical manipulations at the sub-micron level and down to nano scale. Current nanotechnology is literally concentrated on making nano scale structures, but Drexlerian type, while all about atomic control, isn't just about the nano scale. It's ultimate purpose is simply to make building any structures possible whether they're nano sized or kilometer sized.

It's been suggested that the name Drexlerian nanotechnology/molecular manufacturing be changed to something else to reflect the major difference between Drexlerian and non-Drexlerian to help reduce the public confusion over the different usage of the term.

It's an unfortunate case that nanotechnology has become such a major buzzword lately, like all buzzwords, it ended up being mangled.

Elvithriel

What I meant is that the rate of change is exponential (actually it's double exponential), not constant.

Huge resource at Ray Kurzweil's site. http://www.kurzweilai.net/index.html?flash=1 (Including Eric Drexler's full length book "Engines of Creation" http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?m=8 for the uninitiated)

The human body is amazing and evolution has been most creative. Having said that, the human body is not very efficiant. Take red blood cells for example, we are already working on artifical red blood cells that would clean the clock of the ones in your body right now. Imagine, being able to hold your breath for 4 hours underwater or to do a full out sprint for 15 minutes straight. Thats the future of nanotechnology.

Wounded King

What exactly are you basing this double exponential measurement on if not the developments of the previous period? Or was your point merely that the rate of advance is not constant?

Your examples sound like distinctly non-drexlerian nanotechnology.