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Nanotechnology
In other words, I started this book very skeptical, but it convinced me. I don't know how many of you have heard of Mark Ratner, but he is credited with being the first to speculate on using individual molecules as components in electronic circuits back in 1974. If you read about molecular electronics now (or go to any moletronics conferences) you'll see his name come up constantly. He is also associate director of the nanotech institute at Northwestern University, the first dedicated nanotech center in the country. This is not like reading a lot of the books out there - he really knows his stuff.
The book starts with a general introduction, talks about hype, nanobots, and the big budgets that are out there for nanotech research. It opens a lot of questions, including ethical issues and a little bit of skepticism which I think is very healthy for a science which promises a lot, but has yet to truly distinguish itself.
After the introduction, there is a chapter which gets to the heart of matters -- it explains that nanotech is not just the ultimate level of miniaturization, but that it is special since it is at the interface of bulk properties, quantum properties, and the key elements in life processes (such as DNA). It also sets the stage for the heart of the book -- chapters on tools for the nanosciences (ever wonder why nano wasn't real until now even though Feynman started talking about it in the 1960s?), a grand tour which will quickly dispel any illusions that nanotechnology is all about nanobots a la Bill Joy and Star Trek, and chapters on smart materials, biomedical applications, sensors, optics, and electronics. There is also recap of some basic science, but not many Slashdotters will need that.
While the hype may not be breathless, these chapters left me that way. What the Ratners discuss is real, in context, and discussed intelligently and thoughtfully. They gave me enough science to explain what they are talking about but not enough to distract me and they include a dash of some appropriately wry humor to lighten things up. There are illustrations throughout and a color inset in the middle. The illustrations are clearly from lab work -- their quality varies significantly, but I found them very useful indeed.
One of my favorite aspects of the book is the sidebars -- there are sections on DNA computing, quantum computing, swarm computing, nanotubes, lab-on-a-chip, and other applications. These are short, sweet, and, as always, to the point.
The book ends with two chapters on business and ethics. Unlike most nanotech books I've read, there was some substantial thought here. Ethical issues such as intellectual property concerns as well as health issues were treated at some length. The book doesn't come to conclusions on these points -- it attempts to present a balanced discussion and actively encourages readers to enter the debate. The business section was obviously written by someone who lived through the dot-com bubble (I'm guessing this was Mark's coauthor, Dan). Some of the points were obvious, but the analysis for investors is something well worth reading (attention VCs!) and again, the authors set the sights at a reasonable level. They point out that there are fortunes to be made, but not by accident. They also make some predictions about where the money is.
My only complaints about this book were that a few of the pictures were not of ideal quality, and that the companion web site wasn't very exciting (though they promise to update it.) All in all I found the book to be an ideal mix of technical and non-technical, a superb survey of a complex field, and an interesting read throughout. It leaves all of the other "introduction to nano" books in the shade -- perhaps because it is written by a pioneer in the field as well as someone who has thought about how to make it pay. I considered it required reading for anyone who wants to understand what nano is really about.
You can purchase Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Tits up to the Trolls(tm) !!! fp
Could they make nanites like the worms in futurama, or do I have to eat the special sauce at a space diner?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
What about Mystery Science Theater 3000? The nanites on that show were really great, though they did have an unfortunate habit of blowing up planets when rattled.
What I don't get about nanotech is how do you power these things?
Someone I know is a grad student at a prestigious university that shall remain nameless. He's doing research that is supposed to somehow be "nanotechnology." However, the size of devices he's dealing with is huge, about 50 to 100 microns.
We decided that this was "mega-nanotechnology."
War nanobots! Wouldn't it be great if nations of the future duked it out with nanites! War on a petri dish! We could paint little numbers on their backs... Huzzah!
Polaroid. See what develops!!
Mork had Nano technology back in the 70s.
"Nano Nano"
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
He was the geeky kid from "Fast Times at Ridgemont high"!
I'm honestly shocked that you had to even ask...
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
Chapter on Business, first line: "Fire anyone who reads the chapter on ethics."
Most of what I've read about nanotechnology has come from Scientific American. From a layman's point of view their nanotech section is probably the best reference there is.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
This ounds like a good idea, but I'm worried it may have long-term broader social consequences.
I think we can all agree that the temporal expectations (as shownd by Schroeddinger) suggest an eliptical evoltuion path, even for technology. Taken to the logical extreme, it's clear that there monolithic kernels like linux are incompatable with nanotechnology and nano-kernels. Indeed, most nano-kernels (minix, darwin, WinNT) are non-free.
To which I would reply, "So all the other nanotechnologists don't have a degree?"
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
that you monitor the RSS feed for nanodot.org, a slash-like site run by the Foresight Institute, and focuses on nanotech news.
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
I met Eric Drexler and Ralph Merkle at one of the Foresight Institute meetings a few years ago while I was living in Silicon Vally. I had always been a nanotech groupy and decided to shell out big bucks to buy Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation which unfortunately totally was beyond my level of scientific education (Jim, I'm a doctor, not a physicist ;-) Anyway, this looks like something a bit more becoming for us 'pseudo science geeks' who know the basics about DNA, molecules, Angstrom, MOLs etc.. but don't have a deep scientific foundation. This is going to be the next frontier - well, actually it already is, and the better the wider public is informed the better. I am actually in the planning phase for a 3-part nanotech documentary, if anyone is interested in contributing, please let me know.
The book that spawned this movie was based on real students, and this one in particular founded the publishing empire for Dummies!
Everything I know about nanotechnology I learned by reading Michael Crichton's "Prey". Uh.. I should probably find a better reference.
I remeber seeing a story (either /. or techtv) about charging wireless devices using a little pad. All you had to do was set it on top, and it somehow charged the battery. I suppose you could just slap all the bots on one of them. Prolly wouldn't need a whole lot of power either...
Polaroid. See what develops!!
Nanotechnology, the next big thing.
... will be huge!
Nanotech book, date, Nanotech book, date, Nanotech book, date... a shit... let's go to the bookstore...
Nanobots are small - they shouldn't need too much power. I don't know about the real feasibility of this, hardware not being my department :), but I wonder if there is a way to power nanobots "wirelessly".
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I believe what you are referring to are MEMs (Micro-Electromechanical Machines). These are devices in the micron scale (and such are not nanotechnology). Nanotech is devices at the nanoscale. MEMs research and devices are generally much further advanced than nanotech currently (for obvious reasons) and there are several real-world MEMs devices out there. A good example is probable the accelerometer in your car's airbag (which measures the high acceleration during a crash and tells your airbag to deploy).
~Laur
Chuckle... Glad I am reading at -1.
Trolls are like Springer... you can't believe you watch it, but damn, sometimes it just makes you laugh.
AC (protectin' the Karma)
I was really hoping this review would cover interesting things. For instance, how nano has pico compatability modes. And, like searches in a file can use regular expressions.
Sure, some of that isn't teribley exciting nano technology, but it should be said. Nano may not have the best tech behind it, but for a simple text editor, it truly is easy to work with.
I didn't even see any pot shots at emacs or vi in there. Truly a disappointing review.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
brownian motion.
(Also, there are rumors of spray on battery technology being developed for nanobots too large to be powered by brownian motion but still very small.)
I take your point about using the "nano" buzzword for mindless grant-spamming, but he could be right. The definition of nanotech is typically a material that has at least one dimension containing features that are designed and controlled at a resolution below 200 nanometers.
The definition might change a bit with who you talk to, but the key point is feature control. I could have something that's 10 feet on a side, but if I carefully control the feature size/resolution at a level of 100 nm, that could appropriately be called "nanotech."
But naturally, it's just a word.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
For a great piece of fiction concerning nanotechnologies, patents, RIAA, virtual reality, quantum computing (e.g. everything people around here love/hate :), read Autonomy - Freedom of Thought. It basically talks about a groups of scientists that 'escaped' to a virtual world to flee drastic copyright and patent laws that crippled their research in the 'real' world.
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
... you can only edit very tiny files.
unfortunately, with some of my friends, i know they'd "win" everytime (and have no shame about it!)
the companion web site wasn't very exciting (though they promise to update it.)
What's this?! A unexciting web site that someone is promising to update? I've never heard of this practice before. Verrry Interesting...
Error: Success
Everything I know about nanotechnology I learned by reading Michael Crichton's "Prey".
Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age is a better book, if not necessarily a better reference. It goes beyond the technology itself and deals with the consequences of a future where mass-production is so cheap as to make basic goods free.
And the nanotech in it seems to have been inspired largely by Drexler's Engines of Creation, which is an inspiring read until you realize it came out fifteen years ago.
Alpha particles and other such impacting on a chip, changing zeros to ones or vice versa could alter a nanobot's programming, effectively creating a mutation analogous to biological mutations. This could be a big problem with self-replicating types of nanobots. You don't have room to put in radiation shielding.
Destructive effects don't have to be the result of deliberate malicious programming; they could arise purely by accident.
Didn't realize these guys were both here at NU. Based on the directory info Daniel is a visiting scholar in the WCAS (Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences), and Mark is a professor in the same department. I wonder why they're not part of the Materials Science & Engineering department (which I'm an undergrad, studying under).
The new nanofabrication center is sweet.
i messed up my modding! this is interesting! thanks!
Mark has long been in the chemistry department (he's been the chairman at least once). So yes, he's part of WCAS--he was also a dean in WCAS once.
IIRC, Daniel has been lecturing at Kellogg.
But since Mark is out of the country right now, I can't ask him.
In any case, there's a distinction between materials chemistry and materials science/engineering. Mark is certainly part of the Materials Research Center here at Northwestern, but lectures the general chemistry (Chem 101) class every fall. Quite good.
Cheers,
-Geoff
(I'm a grad student of Mark's.)
I've seen articles that suggest microwave radio transmission as one way to get power to lots of small-scale machines. Actually, simply illuminating them with any kind of electromagnetic radiation that would generate electricity via something like solar cells might be a simple way to convey power, that way you can juice them as much as neccessary. In fact, you could just put them in a field of alternating magnetic force and have their onboard motors be driven directly. Another way might be for them to have small fuel cells onboard. You put them in a pressurized atmosphere of hydrogen and oxygen to allow them to tank up.
Nanotech, the next big thing.
There are plenty of ways to verify the integrity of a piece of software and to repair it if its damaged. One brute force technique, for example, would be to simply have multiple instances of the software in storage and a separate thread of execution for each instance. Then get them to vote on what actions to take. A broken program instance would be "voted off the island" and reinitialized.
Of course, this is not feasible for nanobots working in complete darkness, such as processing oil or sludge, or laboring underground. Maybe those could operate using hydrogen / sulfur pathways.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
To cull the mutations that are not useful, and expedite breeding of those that are - so really you'll be begging for as many mutations as you can get to make your nanothings more efficient.
And yes, you do have overseers for the overseers...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I want to have Assimalation tubulas
Actualy, I don't see how you can use a wavelength larger than the receptor; this means you can't use w.l. much higher than IR (~ 1 micron) (most definately not radio).
...). It means that the w.l. is lower-bounded somewhere in the UV domain (say, ~200nm).
:-) . Taking this view, it's not surprizing life evolved on a planet with a star radiating mostly in the visual domain.)
From the other end, you're limited to non-ionizing radiation (or your micro-machines will break
This means you can use carrying radiation along the visual regime (400..700nm) or a bit further, not too much though.
(IANAB, but I guess these are roughly the constraints for the plants chloroplasts as well; of course, chloroplasts are nanomachines powered wirelessly
Working for necessity's mother.
All I want from nanotechnology are little devices that go into our blood stream and stop ageing so we can all live forever (that is, if nanotech wars doesn't kill us first) in order to witness new technology achievements.
What I never understood is why nanotech is actually refered to as a real science, with real products, and real consequences. As of this writing, there is no TECH in Nanotech, just theorizing, a few experiments at angstrom dimensions, but thats it.
Maybe thats why its called Nanotech, because so little of it actually exists.
I couldn't finish Diamond Age because it was so ridiculously silly.