Engineering Tiny Machines

As we've said before, ask 100 people to define nanotechnology and you'll get 11 different answers: 90 people will say "I don't know anything about it", and the other ten will give you varying definitions.

At CRN, we have been using this definition: Nanotechnology is the projected ability to make things from the bottom up, using techniques and tools that are being developed today to place every atom and molecule in a desired place.

That's not very precise (or concise), but it gives a layperson the basic idea.

On the Civen website, mentioned in our previous post, they provide this simple definition: Nanotechnology is the art of manipulating matter at the atomic length scale to create new materials, devices and systems.

Not too bad, but it's pretty vague.

Recently, I came across the best short definition I've ever seen. It was in a paper [PDF] written a few years ago by Albert Tsai for the University of Southern California's Technology Commercialization Alliance. He said: Nanotechnology is the engineering of tiny machines.

Beautiful. Perfect. That says it all in a nutshell. If it doesn't involve engineering and machines -- that is, if it's just dealing with materials -- then it's not nanotech. Instead, it's what we call nanoscale technologies.

The phrase "tiny machines" also could mean microscale, of course, and not just nanoscale. But that's okay, because the machines that first are engineered at the nanoscale eventually will be programmed to build larger machines, all the way up to macroscale nanofactories.

So I think this definition is just right: Nanotechnology is the engineering of tiny machines. And I think everyone should begin using it, starting with the NNI, where they really need something better than this absurdly broad description.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology engineering weblog blog

Comments

[Richard Jones]

I certainly agree that the very broad definition of nanotechnology needs to be broken up somewhat, and the distinction between materials and functional devices is a good place to start. But your definition seems to me to introduce another definitional problem - what's a machine? If you managed to make a large-scale integrated circuit with individual molecules as the components, is that a machine? What about a delivery device that wrapped up a strand of RNA, shielded it from the body's defenses and injected it into a diseased cell? What if you made a synthetic analogue of a bacterial flagellar motor? All three of these examples would certainly be well beyond a nanomaterial, but you might not recognise them as machines of the kind we're familiar with. (Actually you might think the last one was, but you'd be wrong).

Isn't your formulation just a slightly clunky rewriting of Drexler's own definition in Nanosystems: "The principles of mechanical engineering applied to chemistry"? This is a fine, succinct, definition. The only problems with it are that it assumes (a) that the principles of mechanical engineering can be applied to chemistry, and (b) it excludes the possibility of any other kind of radical nanotechnology which uses different principles.

[cdnprodigy]

How about a definition based upon nanoscale effects: nanotechnology is any artificially engineered device/process where a certain benchmark of operating efficiency via the scaling law is harnessed.

[cdnprodigy]

I meant "operating speed", not operating efficiency.

[Philip Moriarty]

"Nanotechnology is the engineering of tiny machines": is this a suitable definition of the field?

This seems like a very good question for debate and discussion later this month! (Visit http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~pazxc/ssss2005/ssss2005debate.htm for details).

Best wishes,

Philip

PS Mike, Chris - apologies for yet another shameless plug for the Nottingham event...

[Mike Treder, CRN]

No problem, Phillip. In fact, I'm planning to do a blog post tomorrow about the upcoming debate.

[Philip Moriarty]

Hi, Mike.

Thanks for publicising the debate - much appreciated. I look forward to reading the blog post.

Best wishes,

Philip