From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Thu Jun 07 2001 - 10:59:03 MDT
I sent this to Asimov's:
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In his review of Damien Broderick's book "The Spike" Norman Spinrad
says "Nanotechnology [...] is probably beyond the scale limits set by
quantum mechanics." I'm unable to take his arguments seriously because
I can just look out my window and see proof that he's wrong. The tree in my
backyard has converted air, water and a few trace elements into a strong,
beautiful solid much valued as a building material. If I still had doubts I could
just look in a mirror to view another product of nanotechnology. A year ago
the atoms that are now me were in cows and fish and spinach plants, a year
before that they were in carbon dioxide, free nitrogen and water.
The fact that nature's nanotech isn't as advanced as what Drexler
has in mind is not surprising. Evolution is a slow, clumsy,
mindless process but until recently that was the only way
complex structures could be built, then the first stone tools
were made and everything changed. I don't know how long in will
take us to get up to speed on nanotechnology but in engineering
intelligent planning will always beat trial and error so I'm sure it will
be less that 4 billion years, a lot less.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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