Foresight Update 22
Page 5
A publication of the Foresight Institute
 Media
Watch
Wired
magazine, which listed nanotechnology in its "Tired"
column a while ago, covered the topic in its popular "Reality
Check" column in August. This regular feature selects a
variety of experts on a topic and asks them to guess the date of
arrival of various achievements in the field. The events selected
were first molecular assembler, first nanocomputer, first cell
repair machine, first commercial product, and first
nanotechnology-oriented law. The experts were Robert
Birge (Syracuse), Donald Brenner
(NC State), Eric Drexler (IMM), Josh Hall (Rutgers),
and Richard Smalley
(Rice), all of whom have spoken or are slated to speak at
Foresight conferences.
The ranges were: assembler, 2000-2025; nanocomputer, 2010-2100;
cell repair, 2010-2050; commercial product, 2000-2015; law,
1995-2036. Perhaps the most interesting figure is the average
guess for the development of the assembler: 2011. Because we're
not used to looking at years starting in 2, it looks far off, but
it's only 16 years from now-well within the lifetimes of most
Foresight members. Amusing note: in three of the five categories,
the average guess was earlier than the date guessed by Eric
Drexler.
Business Week readers got a nanotechnology update in
a July 3 report of the nanocatalysis being done by Lawrence Berkeley Lab's Peter
Schultz. He uses a platinum-coated AFM tip to catalyze
reactions at specific points on a surface. As Business Week
puts it, "Imagine dipping an ultrafine quill pen into
platinum ink, then using it to transform the chemical structure
of individual molecules." [Editor's Note: see Jeffrey
Soreff's column in
this issue.]
The UK's Computing and Control Engineering Journal,
in a June article titled "Nanotechnology in the
Marketplace," asserted that "The UK's position in
nanotechnology is strong, particularly in areas such as precision
machining, metrology, nanolithography, and nanostructured
materials" Unfortunately, these are all top-down
miniaturization technologies, rather than bottom-up molecular
nanotechnologies.
The Dutch science and technology magazine PolyTechnisch
tijdschrift included an extensive nanotechnology
article in their June/July issue featuring Eric Drexler and Ralph
Merkle. Foresight will send a copy of the article to those able
to provide partial translation.
The new book Nano by Ed
Regis (LIttle, Brown, 1995) has received many reviews, mostly
positive with a few negative. One gratifyingly positive review
was published in Caltech's Engineering
& Science magazine, Spring '95 issue: "By the
beginning of the nineties, however, which was coming to be known
as the nanotechnology decade, Drexler had written a book of
equations...Nanotechnology is the future, it is now assumed, and
all that remain are the philosophical questions...[Regis] writes
with humor but takes his subject seriously at the same time. It
may sound like science fiction, but it isn't anymore."
The Boston Globe exhibited some confusion in a May article on
nanotechnology, stating "...so fast has nanotechnology moved
out from the realm of speculation that significant steps are now
reported almost weekly in scientific journals." Then later
in the article: "Few other scientists believe such
claims...'nanotechnology need not be taken seriously'." And
then later, "Not only might it be possible to read the
information on a DNA strand, but someday also to 'do some very
precise microsurgery' on the DNA molecule itself to correct a
genetic defect, for example." The overall impression was
positive.
The R-rated movie Virtuosity, which features
nanotechnology, has been receiving very bad reviews, so its level
of accuracy or inaccuracy in its treatment of the topic may not
be crucial.
Despite its odd name, Red
Herring is a serious business magazine, we're told. Their
August issue featured an interview of Foresight's Eric Drexler.
Naomi Pearce wrote about nanotechnology and Foresight for California Computer
News in August. She reviews good and bad potential applications,
as well as both U.S. and other nanotechnology R&D efforts,
closing with, "Thus, we're not alone in developing this
beyond-revolutionary technology. I just hope we develop it with
true foresight-for the sake of the entire world."
Recent
Events, Local Events
Ralph Merkle spoke on
molecular nanotechnology at Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, ARPA,
and the Naval Research
Laboratory this August.
Eric Drexler spoke on nanotechnology at a meeting of Hughes and
TRW space system engineers on July 26 and to Genentech researchers on
September 17 at Asilomar. His lecture at the Smithsonian is being re-scheduled
for the spring; we'll publish the date when available.
Also on September 17, MMEI
president Steve Vetter spoke to the new molecular nanotechnology
study group at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ninety persons attended. The
next meeting is Oct. 8; contact Joe Doyle at
doyle@students.uiuc.edu, tel 328-4695.
Representing Foresight Institute,
Ted Kaehler of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple Computer
spoke on the subject "Going to the Limit with Atoms: A Swift
Introduction to Nanotechnology" at the EE380 Computer
Systems Colloquium at Stanford University on May 24. His talk was
carried over the University's television network later the same
day. The talk's abstract reads, "What could we build if we
really had control of atoms? The new engineering discipline of
molecular manufacturing is exploring the answer to this question.
One answer is an assembler-a machine that can make an exact copy
of itself. Another answer is the molecular mill-a factory for
spatially controlled chemical reactions. Why are computer
scientists especially interested in molecular
nanotechnology?"
The Los Angeles Area Robotics and Automation Group's Spring 1995
Symposium, sponsored by the Integrated Manufacturing Engineering
Program at UCLA, the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied
Science, the Departments of Computer Science, Electrical
Engineering, and Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering,
and the UCLA Engineering Graduate Students Association was held
April 28 at UCLA. Among the speakers was Prof. Ari Requicha of
USC, speaking on the topic "Molecular Robotics." (See a
description of his Molecular
Robotics Lab on the Web;
http://alicudi.usc.edu/lmr/molecular_robotics_lab.html)
A molecular nanotechnology study group is getting started in the
Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is being
hosted by the Science Museum
of Minnesota. They plan to meet the second Tuesday of each
month, 7-9 PM. They have a core group including a physicist,
chemist, mathematician, and several business and computer people.
At least four of the attendees are senior associates of FI or
IMM. Contact Steve Vetter at Molecular
Manufacturing Enterprises, Inc. (612) 288-0093, or at
svetter@maroon.tc.umn.edu.
Molecular nanotechnology study groups also meet at MIT (contact
Fred Hapgood, fhapgood@world.std.com or tel 617-426-6758) and
Caltech (contact Tom McCarthy, tmccarth@usc.edu or tel
213-740-5682). The Caltech-based group has been working its way
through the book Nanosystems:
Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation, chapter
by chapter. The MIT-based group recently met with the haptic
interface entrepreneur described elsewhere in this issue.
Christopher Fry of Harlequin
Inc. spoke on nanotechnology to 50 gifted high school
students taking special summer courses in biotechnology and space
science at the University of New
Hampshire. He reports being very happy with the quality of
the audience's questions.
Thanks
Thanks go to Lewis M. Phelps, who served as Guest Editor of
this issue of Update. Lew is founder and Principal of
Phelps Consulting Group, a corporate public relations and
strategic planning consulting firm located in Pasadena, CA. He is
formerly a public relations executive with two large railroads
and a major electric utility, and also has been a staff reporter
for the Wall Street Journal.
His interest in nanotechnology stems from his relationship with Global Business Network, whose
participation in Foresight Institute affairs has been
significant.
The prestige of the Feynman
Prize in Nanotechnology has increased due to donations
enabling us to increase its size, thanks to Marc Arnold,
Christopher Portman, and Ted Kaehler.
Special thanks go to those of you making significant donations to
the Web Enhancement
Project: Frank Comardo, James Gallagher, Thomas Landsberger,
Robert Leslie, Eric Lewis, Jim Lewis, Barry Silverstein, and John
Walker.
Huge thanks as always go to Ralph
Merkle, especially now for his tireless work as chairman of
the upcoming nanotechnology
conference. If you have access to the Web, be sure to see his
set of nanotechnology pages (see Web and conference articles in
this issue).
Recruiting thanks go to Marie-Louise Kagan for bringing in new
Foresight members and to Steve Vetter for recruiting new Senior
Associates.
As always, we are indebted to a number of Foresight members and
friends for providing clippings and other valuable information.
These include Jon Alexandr, Joe Bonaventura, Richard Cathcart,
Michael Colpitts, Michael Edelstein, Chuck Estes, Dave Forrest,
Tom Glass, Jones Hamilton, Fred Hapgood, Ronald Hartzell, Mark
Haviland, G.A. Houston, Stan Hutchings, Samuel Lin, Scott
MacLaren, Joy Martin, Tom McKendree, Ken Meyering, Anthony
Napier, Hal Puthoff, Ronald Salesky, Tim Such, Tihamer
Toth-Fejel, and Steven Vetter. We may have missed some of those
contributing by email; it's getting to be quite a flood-please
keep it coming.
We also gratefully thank Richard Terra for his donation of new
Excel and Powerpoint software to the Foresight office.
-Chris Peterson
Upcoming
Events
42nd National Symposium of American Vacuum Society,
Oct. 16-20, 1995, Minneapolis. Includes nanometer-scale science
and technology: mostly top-down but also supramolecular
structures, self-assembly, proximal probe based fabrication,
biological nanostructures. Tel 212-248-0327; fax 212-248-0245;
email marion@vacuum.org.
From Neurons
to Nanotechnology, Oct. 18-19, NASA Ames. Sponsored by
NASA, NIH, JPL. Machine intelligence workshop including Ralph
Merkle and Charles Bennett on nanotechnology. Email
ross@biocomp.arc.nasa.gov, Web
http://biocomp.arc.nasa.gov:80/nanotech.
Wescon '95, Biomedical Engineering session, Nov. 8, San
Francisco. Includes "Going to the Limit with Atoms in
Medical Technology: Nanomachines" by Ted Kaehler. Tel
408-734-8818, fax 408-734-8898, email wescon@tech.com.
4th
Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, Nov.
8-11, 1995, Palo Alto. Enabling science and technologies,
molecular components, systems design, R&D strategies.
Foresight Institute, tel 415-917-1122, fax 415-917-1123, email
foresight@cup.portal.com, Web
http://nano.xerox.com/nanotech/nano4.html
Senior Associate
Gathering, Nov. 11-12, 1995, Palo Alto. Annual meeting of
Foresight, IMM, and CCIT Senior Associates
(min. pledge $250/yr for 5 yrs). Intensive exploration of
nanotechnology issues; participants need to have read Engines or
Unbounding. Accessible to non-technical participants. Foresight
Institute, tel 415-917-1122, fax 415-917-1123, email
foresight@cup.portal.com.
29th International
Conference on Systems Sciences, Jan 3-6, 1996, Maui.
Sponsored by IEEE. Includes nanotechnology plenary by Eric
Drexler. Tel 808-956-7396, fax 808-956-3766, email
hicss@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu, Web http://www.cba.
hawaii.edu/hicss
Organo/Molecular Electronics, Jan. 29-31, 1996, San Jose,
CA. Sponsored by IBC
Conferences USA. Includes scanning probes, self-assembly,
structure-building with DNA. Tel 508-481-6400, email
bsheehan@ibcusa.com.
Structure Controlled Macromolecules of Nanoscopic Dimensions,
symposium within Materials Research
Society Meeting, April 8-12, 1996, San Francisco. Includes
nanoscale assemblies and nano-devices. Tel 412-367-3004, fax
412-367-4373, email info@mrs.org, Web http://www.mrs.org
Nanotechnology lecture for Smithsonian, Washington, DC, by
Eric Drexler, date in spring '96 to be announced in later Update.
From Foresight Update 22, originally
published 15 October 1995.
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