Foresight Update 27
Page 4
A publication of the Foresight Institute
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 Media Watch
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Byte Magazine
Byte Magazine, in its December 1996 special
issue on The Future of Computing, asked
eight computer industry leaders to respond to a set of questions.
Several answers invoked nanotechnology. Asked "How long will
Moore's Law continue to be relevant?" Marc Andreessen,
Netscape Communications Corp.'s Senior Vice President,
Technology, said, "Through 2020, when we will see a
discontinuous improvement in performance rejoining a new Moore's
Law curve based on transition toward molecular nanotechnology."
David Chaum, of DigiCash, when asked "When will quantum
effects and other problems require radically new
technologies?" responded, "I'm not sure we will be
forced to develop nanotechnology, but I sure hope we do."
Asked about chip manufacturing in zero-gravity environment,
Andreessen responded, "Only as an unlikely and distant
possibility. Nanotechnology will have begun to bear fruit before
zero-gravity chip manufacturing makes sense."
Fortune Magazine
Fortune Magazine also profiled Andreessen in its
December 9 issue, where he spoke broadly about nanotechnology:
Says Fortune: "One of his favorite novels is The
Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson. Its plot is built around
nanotechnology, the science of manipulating individual atoms to
build devices and circuits. Although nanotechnology is being
taken more and more seriously, its possibilities seem positively
chimerical. At its extreme, nanotechnology would allow us to
create stuff--anything from a chair to a blimp--out of
practically nothing. 'So many of the things people do are going
to be unnecessary when matter can be rearranged arbitrarily,'
says Andreessen. 'I mean, this gets into all kinds of bizarre
stuff. Immortality. There's no fundamental reason why the
breakdown of cell structures is inevitable.' He pauses to sip
some iced tea, waiting to see if I've heard correctly. 'There's
no reason...' I begin.'There's no reason death should happen,' he
rushes on. 'There's no reason decay shouldn't be totally
repairable. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to design
exactly the body you want.'
The Fortune profile ends with Andreessen looking into the
future. "'You know,' he says, 'within 30 years someone's
going to make a shitload of money in nanotech.'"
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun carried a major story
headlined "Working atom by atom" in its July 13, 1996
issue. The story focuses on the work of two University of
Southern California professors, chemist and Nobel Laureate Dr.
George A. Olah and professor of chemical and electrical
engineering Larry R. Dalton. They are working under a $6.7
million Defense Department grant to develop functioning nanoscale
electronic memory devices, which Dalton estimates are five to ten
years away. "Twenty years ago any reasonable scientist would
have said we were crazy. It would have been impossible,"
Dalton is quoted in the article as saying.
At USC, Cornell, Caltech, and the University of North Carolina,
"Dalton and his colleagues are using an STM probe to
...[switch] their chemical state, changing them to represent ones
or zeros-- the fundamental alphabet of digital memory. The
molecules then become 'information bearing units,' or IBUs. The
IBUs are placed at key points on branching molecules called
dendritic polymers, all precisely constructed at the consortium's
laboratories. The IBUs are like knots on a vast and intricate net
that is just one molecule thick. In a computer memory, the
polymer lattice might be mounted on a spinning disc, and its IBUs
could be read, written upon and erased by the tip of an
STM," the article says.
The story also reports on techniques being explored at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory by Dr. Troy W. Barbee Jr., using
"sputtering" technology to deposit alternating layers
of elements a dozen or fewer atoms thick. One sample of
copper-nickel microlayer material has a tensile strength of
270,000 pounds per square inch--65 percent of its theoretical
limit compared with 3 to 5 percent for normal metals, the story
says. Other microlayer alloys created have hardness approaching
diamond, and very high heat tolerance, with near-term
applications in jet turbine blades, the story says. Although the
technique might be considered "top down," it suggests
the magnitude of improvement in material science that can be
achieved with molecularly precise manufacturing techniques.
The Times of London
The Times of London carried a long column by
Anjana Ahuja describing Foresight Institute's announcement of the
Feynman Grand Prize (see
Update
24). "Science prizes have a great tradition.
The fields of aviation, space travel and marine navigation have
all inspired benefactors to offer substantial sums to those
making great strides forward. Now the Foresight Institute, a
non-profit organization based in San Francisco, California, will
ensure that nanotechnology, which is based on the manipulation of
individual molecules and atoms, joins this prestigious league.
The institute is offering $250,000 (£160,000) to the first
individual or group to design and build a robotic arm to certain
specifications."
"There are several ways of fiddling about with individual
atoms, the most well-known of which is the scanning tunnelling
microscope," Ahuja writes. "Although it is a highly
visionary view of the future, nanotechnology
aficionadoes...insist that this fledgling science is about to
break into the mainstream. Among those pursuing the field in
Britain are the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and
Birmingham."
Nature
Nature also prominently covered the Feynman
Grand Prize announcement in its August 22, 1996 issue. "To
win the newly announced prize, entrants must design and construct
a functional nanometer-scale robotic arm with specific
performance characteristics, as well as design and construct a
functional nanometer-scale computing device capable of adding two
8-bit binary numbers.
Nanotechnology is an emerging technology based on the ability to
assemble individual molecules and atoms into precise
structures," the Nature story said in part.
The same publication's Nov. 7 issue reported from London that
British researchers into nanotechnology are concerned because the
field was not identified as a priority in Britain's recent
Technology Foresight exercise. The concern is that the omission
will result in a lack of funding for needed research. "New
funding has dried up from both the National Initiative on
Nanotechnology and a Nanotechnology Programme backed jointly by
the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the
Department of Trade and Industry," Nature reported.
Chemtech
Chemtech, published by the American Chemical
Society, offers a monthly "Touring the Internet" guide,
which in September featured seven nanotechnology-related sites,
including Ralph Merkle's
at Xerox and Al
Globus's at NASA. The reviewer also discusses the sci.nanotech
Usenet discussion group.
The Futurist
The Futurist, a bi-monthly publication of Coates
& Jarratt Inc., a Washington D.C.-based futurist
organization, favorably reviews Nanotechnology: Molecular
Speculations on Global Abundance, edited by B.C. Crandall,
(MIT Press, 1996) in its November-December 1996 issue.
"While some of nanotech's more mainstream applications (e.g.
intelligent construction materials and medical tools) are
familiar to many readers, this anthology describes other, more
imaginative and novel uses," the review says. The book
comprises a series of essays, of which the reviewer cites those
by Richard Crawford on cosmetic surgery and other cosmetic
alterations, Edward M. Reifman on dental applications such as
diamondoid teeth, and H. Keith Henson's suggestion that people
could experience otherwise lethal wounds in role-playing sword
fights so that "fantasy games would thus become more real
than ever thought possible."
Internet Underground
Internet Underground, in its November 1996
issue, carried a three-page question-and-answer format interview
with Foresight Institute Chairman Eric Drexler, ("FAQ:
Rappin' with Molecular Mix-Master Dr. Dre'") focusing mostly
on the increasing use of the World Wide Web for scientific
discourse and Foresight Institute's support for the Web Enhancement Project.
Although the publication's style might be described as
"post-Wired," author Lauren Gonzalez's questions
to Drexler were knowledgeable and focused. For example in
discussion of "filtering" (using reader-selected
criteria to display only specific authors or documents) Gonzalez
asks : "In Hypertext
Publishing, you wrote of television being the
major medium, yet it seems poorly suited for critical discussion.
If we start filtering, allowing people to define exactly what
they need, in a sense choosing 'channels' of information, aren't
we taking away what makes the Web so different from television to
begin with?" Drexler responds, "Filtering would
certainly let people disappear off into a sub-world of their own.
But unlike television, it wouldn't tend to merge everybody in a
particular sub-world--maximizing the number of viewers...it is
crucial that some part of this world make it possible for the
really big life-and-death issues of policy, technology and the
future [to be discussed]."
Web
Watch
By Jim Lewis
Prof. Richard E. Smalley, Director of the Center for Nanoscale
Science and Technology at Rice University, who shared the 1996
Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his collaborators Robert F. Curl
and Harold W. Kroto for their 1985 discovery of fullerenes (see this issue's lead story),
maintains an excellent nanotechnology-oriented web site. The
material posted there ranges from general introductions to his
latest technical papers.
Included on his site is the complete text plus illustrations of a
general introductory talk, "Nanotechnology and
the next 50 years," that he gave in December 1995. A
somewhat more technical talk, also presented complete with
illustrations, is "From Balls to Tubes to
Ropes: New Materials from Carbon," which he presented in
January 1996. This second talk provides a very informative
introduction to his work, and to the unique properties of
fullerenes, providing points for considering the potential of
fullerene research in the development of molecular
nanotechnology.
Prof. Smalley's list
of publications is available on his site. Of the 211
publications listed, 10 of the most recent ones are available for
downloading, with full text and figures. Perhaps of particular
interest is his recent publication in Nature of the use of nanotubes as tips
for scanning probe microscopy. One of the most impressive micrographs
published of a scanning force microscope tip is from this paper.
Making Smalley's Web site even more valuable are his reports to
the sponsors of his research (http://cnst.rice.edu/nsf95.html
and http://cnst.rice.edu/onr96.html).
These provide both capsule summaries of his major achievements
and indications of his thinking about future projects.
This Web site recently posted by Daniel Mumzhiu, Michael
Montemerlo, and James Ellenbogen of the MITRE Corporation
Nanosystems Group announces itself as "THE Nanoelectronics
Home Page provides the Internet Gateway to nanoelectronics
research and development information and resources from around
the world." The site is off to a very good start at living
up to this claim. Most of the material at this site is at an
intermediate level of technical difficulty, accessible to the
scientifically literate generalist, although some material is of
more interest to specialists. Excellent illustrations of various
devices are provided.
The site includes brief but informative overviews, with links to
additional material, of quantum
computers, nanomechanical
computers, and computers
using DNA and other biomolecules. However, the site
concentrates on electronic
nanocomputers. Their treatment of electronic nanocomputers
includes both solid state and molecular electronic devices, and
the content of their treatment is both wide and deep. Topics
include wireless cellular automata, resonant tunnelling and
single electron devices, quantum dots, and molecular switches.
Other very useful areas include a "Who's
Who in Nanoelectronics". Several dozen experts and
researchers in various areas are grouped according to sub-field
of interest and listed, with a short paragraph on each. There is
likewise a very thorough list
of organizations and institutions where work on the field is
done.
The description of nanosystems
and nanoelectronics research underway at Mitre reveals a
major effort in computational modeling, focusing on improved
electron-density-based quantum modeling. Their hope is that
certain simplifications of the equations of quantum mechanics
will lead to faster and more realistic computer simulation of the
manipulation of nanosystems.
Thanks to major help from Dave Kilbridge, three more back
issues of the Update (#12, #14 and #15) are now
available, with graphics, and six additional issues should be
posted within the next few weeks.
A page has been added for the 1997 Foresight
Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology, announcing the
conference and a call for papers, and providing preliminary
information on speakers. As registration and other information
becomes available, it will be first made available here, and
after the conference is completed, this site will serve as an
archive for the material presented.
A "What's
New?" page has been added, directly accessible from the
home page, so that visitors to the site can quickly determine
what has been added since their last visit.
WebWatch reviews interesting and recently posted
nanotechnology-related materials on the World Wide Web. Jim
Lewis, of James B. Lewis Enterprises in Seattle, is Foresight's
Webmaster. He can be reached by email at: webmaster@foresight.org.
Recent
Events
Science Funding Study Heralds Nanotechnology's Promise
A major federal government report "Allocating Federal
Funds for Science and Technology," issued by the National
Academy of Sciences, calls for funding of nanotechnology
research. It says, in part:
"In many cases no one firm can capture the full benefits of
its investment. This is generally the case for investment in
basic research and can also apply in development related to
emerging technologies. One approach to addressing this problem is
represented by Sematech, an industry consortium created to
improve semiconductor manufacturing, and for which the federal
government provided some initial funding. Federal funding may
help to establish such consortia in limited and highly specific
areas and can be appropriate to support research in consortia
formed by industry. In addition, the government may still have a
role in fostering new enabling technologies. Many people believe
that nanotechnology (i.e., at scales of one-billionth of a meter)
and micromanufacturing, for example, offer exciting commercial
opportunities." The entire report
is available online.
Vacuum Society Symposium
The American Vacuum Society, a Member Society of the American
Institute of Physics, is a volunteer-based, non-profit
organization dedicated to advancing the science and technology of
vacuum, materials, surfaces, interfaces, thin films, and plasmas.
At its 43rd National Symposium in Philadelphia, October 14-18,
AVS offered a number of technical sessions on subjects bearing
directly on nanotechnology. These included:
- "Functionalizing of STM Tips with C60"
by K.F. Kelly and three others from Rice University.
- "Protein-based Computers and Artificial
Retinas," by R.R. Birge and three others from
Syracuse University.
- "Single Atomic Point Contact Devices Fabricated with
an AFM" by E.S. Snow and a colleague from Naval
Research Laboratory.
- "AFM-based Assembly and Characterization of Lateral
Single Electron Tunneling Structures for Room Temperature
Operation" by L. Montelius and four others from Lund
University, Sweden.
- "Immobiliztion and Patterning of Functional Proteins
on Surfaces," by R. A. Brizzolara and two colleagues
at the Naval Surface Warfare Center.
- "Molecular Nanostructures: Functionalized Design,
Assembly at Surfaces and Characterizations of
Properties," by T.A. Jung and others of IBM Zurich
Research Laboratory, Switzerland.
- "Room Temperature Molecular Manipulation with a
Scanning Tunneling Microscope," a poster
presentation by W. W. Pai and three colleagues from Oak
Ridge National Laboratory.
AVS maintains an extensive
Web site. Detailed conference information
including descriptions of each of these and the hundreds of other
presentations, and information on how to contact presenters,
can also be found online.
From Foresight Update 27, originally
published 30 December 96.
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