In "Scholars Probe Nanotechnology's Promise and Its Potential Problems", Physics Today manages to explore both nanoscale technology and molecular manufacturing in one article. They ask good questions, and avoid the most common blunders.
Much of the article focuses on nanoscale technology. Vicki Colvin on buckyballs: "We expected them to be inert. They're not." So dumping buckyballs is a bad idea. Stanley Williams throws in a bit of hyperbole on nanoscale quantum effects: "Quantum mechanics is magic." So there are lots of new properties waiting to be discovered and used.
The article dismisses gray goo, with another quote from Stanley Williams and a mention of Richard Smalley. But they don't let that spill over into a dismissal of molecular manufacturing. That is treated as more or less mainstream, with reference to "expectation of cheap, low-polluting mass manufacturing", and questions such as: "How will individual privacy be protected from surveillance nanosensors? How will inexpensive mass manufacture of nanomaterials change the workforce? How will nanotechnology-related businesses affect local and global economies?"
There's a good quote from Eric Drexler: "Through the quirks of politics, the mainstream has rejected the original goal. We are raising a generation of researchers who have been told that molecular manufacturing will threaten their careers."
CRN, of course, believes that failing to acknowledge and study molecular manufacturing will threaten a lot more than careers. It's very good to see molecular manufacturing being treated as it should be: a prosaic but important technical possibility with lots of big implications.
Chris Phoenix
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