1. Ellen Spertus MCS 123/223 November 5, 2002
Nanotechnology
Ellen Spertus
MCS 123/223
November 5, 2002

2. Richard Feynman (1918-1988) Shared Nobel Prize in Physics, 1965
Known also for his personality
“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”
“What Do You Care What Other People Think?”
Unique combination
Theoretical physicist
Practical
Iconoclast

3. Challenger Disaster (1985)
Part of review panel
Known for
Lambasting NASA
Dunking O-ring
Commitment to truth
“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

4. Grandfather of nanotechnology
“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics”
Presented at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, 1959
Published in Caltech’s Engineering and Science, 1960

5. Photo-reduction
What would it take to inscribe the entire Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin?
Reduction in size by 25,000
Each dot would be the size of 1000 atoms
In 1959, it was known how to read something that small.
Feynman argued that soon we would be able to write that small.

6. Other forms of encoding
Represent each character (letter, number, etc.) as a sequence of dots and dashes.
Represent dots with one kind of metal (125 atoms), dashes with another.
Store in 3 dimensions.
All human knowledge could be stored in a piece of dust 1/200th of an inch wide!

8. Is dense information storage possible?

9. Prediction: Year 2000
“In the year 2000… they will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody began seriously to move in this direction.”

10. Prediction: microcomputers
“There is nothing that I can see in the physical laws that says the computer elements cannot be made enormously smaller than they are now.”

11. History of the integrated circuit
: Integrated circuit invented by
Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments)
Robert Noyce (Fairchild Semiconductor)
1965: Gordon Moore (Intel)
Observes that the density of transistors (computing elements) has been doubling every two years
Predicts this will continue or speed up
Predicts 65,000 transistors per chip by 1975
                                                                                                                                                                                     

13. Predictions
“But I am not afraid to consider the final question as to whether, ultimately – in the great future – we can arrange the atoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down!” – Feynman, 1959
D.M. Eigler, E.K. Schweizer. Positioning single atoms with a scanning tunneling microscope. Nature 344, (1990).

14. Copyright © 1998 by Sidney Harris

15. K. Eric Drexler (1955-) PhD, Molecular Nanotechnology, 1991 Books
Engines of Creation, 1986
Unbounding the Future, 1991
Nanosystems,1992
Father of nanotechnology
Founder and chairman, Foresight Institute

16. Chairman: Eric Drexler President: Christine Peterson
Board of advisors (8)
Doug Englebart, inventor of mouse, hypermedia, etc.
Ray Kurzweil
Marvin Minsky
Senior associates (~500)

17. The term “Nanotechnology”
Coined in 1974 by Nori Taniguchi to mean precision machining with tolerances of a micrometer or less
Popularized by Drexler in 1986
By analogy with microtechnology
micro = one-millionth (10-6)
nano = one-billionth (10-9)
Actually, nm
Source of coinage: Voss, David. “Moses of the Nanoworld.” Technology Review, March/April 1999.
Source of nm: Stix, Gary. “Little Big Science.” Scientific American, September 2001.

18. From Powers of Ten, by Philip and Phylis Morrison and the office of Charles and Ray Eames.

19. Views of Drexler Among engineering students
“Moses of the nanoworld” – Technology Review, 1999
“No idea has gone from wild, fringe science to the dead center of mainstream research faster than nanotechnology.” – Red Herring, October 2000

20. Engines of Construction
Everything is made of atoms.
Millennia ago, we manipulated trillions of trillions of atoms at a time.
Throughout history, we’ve gotten better at manipulating matter.
In the future, we’ll be able to manipulate individual atoms.
                                                              

22. What’s a machine?
“[A]ny system, usually of rigid bodies, formed and connected to alter, transmit, and direct applied forces in a predetermined manner to accomplish a specific objective, such as the performance of useful work.”

23. Another definition
“An intricate natural system or organism, such as the human body.”
“‘Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him, HAMLET.’” – Hamlet, Act II, Scene 1

24. Universal assemblers
Nanomachines able to build any legal configuration of atoms
Once the first universal assembler is built, the “two-week revolution” will begin.
Also universal disassemblers
Clean-up
Duplication

25. Rejection of vitalism
“Is there some special magic about life, essential to making molecular machinery work?”
“This idea is called ‘vitalism.’ Biologists have abandoned it because they have found chemical and physical explanations for every aspect of living cells yet studied…”

26. Engines of Healing (ch. 7)
“We will use molecular technology to bring health because the human body is made of molecules.”
A supercomputer in every cell
Curing “a disease called ‘aging’”.
Cryogenics

27. Benjamin Franklin, 1773
“I wish it were possible … to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they may be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, being immersed with a few friends in a cask of Madeira, until that time, then to be recalled to life.”

30. Nanotechnology funding
                                         
Scientific American, September 2001

31. Artificial and natural motors
                                                     
Scientific American, September 2001

32. Universal assemblers
Most scientists (at least in Scientific American, September 2001) do not think they are are possible.
“Large finger” problem
“Sticky finger” problem
Foresight Institute offering $250,000 Feynman Grand Prize

33. Carbon nanotubes 50,000 times as thin as a human hair
As strong as diamond
Can hold 100 times the current of metal wires
Can be used to build transistors (logic gates)
Being used in industry
Near term: TV displays
Long term: computers

34. J. Storrs Hall PhD in computer science Research areas Nanotechnology
Computer architecture
Programming languages
Algorithms

35. Utility Fog Tiny robots able to Applications Grab on to each other
Alter their physical properties, such as color
Applications
Telepresence
Environment (safety, comfort, etc.)

36. SF novels about nanotechnology
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
Queen City Jazz by Kathleen Goonan
Blood Music by Greg Bear
The First Immortal by James Halperin