> True nanotech, he says, was killed by federal funding.
Uh, no. Drexler nanotech was "killed" by being a completely impractical fantasy. "True" nanotech is chemistry and biology, fields that are both doing just fine, thanks.
Uh, no. Drexler nanotech was "killed" by being a completely impractical fantasy. "True" nanotech is chemistry and biology, fields that are both doing just fine, thanks.
True molecular assembly might never happen, but it's not clear that advances in 'room at the bottom' ideas of nanotech wouldn't have happened, had there been a larger research effort. Advances in using silicon lithographic techniques to produce machines on a micro-scale are pretty amazing - I'm fascinated by the idea of the MIT micro gas turbine (apparently the scaling is such that an aircraft skin covered in micro-turbines could be comparably efficient to macro-scale engines) but I don't think the research has progressed since the early 2000s.
But atoms ain't Lego bricks, and you can't turn cute 3D animations [1] into real mechanisms by wishful thinking.
[1] https://chem.beloit.edu/classes/nanotech/nanorex/index.html
As for the reference animations I am not sure if they actually correspond to real physics even if you could arrange the molecules in such a fashion.
Of course biology does such things but the scale here is a different. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYt5135_0bs
I think if you wanted to do what Feynman wanted you would need extremely accurate simulations that would include your mechanism for construction.
I ran into these issues when doing electrochemical deposition for copper microstructures. The effect had an interaction with the double layer that drove the deposition. This basically meant that the mechanism for construction was very fickle.
Well, they are made with molecular mechanics simulations, so I imagine they are very accurate at every point, except where atoms moving in different directions interact.
They are also not completely wrong at those points, but probably wrong enough for the work to be useless.
Anyway, your complaint applies to Drexler's work, not to his goals. Yes, he didn't really try to make a working device (WTF is that obsession with gears? Notice only the last 3 designs have anything to do with molecular construction? Somewhere on his site he explains those 3 came from a student, while he was focusing on the gears.) and was much more prolific as a sci-fi author than a scientist. That doesn't mean that the idea can not be implemented.