RE: design complexity of assemblers (was: Ramez Naam: redesigningchildren)

From: Ramez Naam (mez@apexnano.com)
Date: Tue Nov 26 2002 - 09:52:15 MST


From: Eugen Leitl [mailto:eugen@leitl.org]
> There is no fundamental problem to model a nanoassembler at
> atomic detail. Current simulations are well past 10^9 atoms
> mark. I don't see any problems with modelling a cubic
> micron or so.

Molecular modeling is a field I work in, and I'm not aware of any
current modeling methods that are able to handle 10^9 atoms.

Consider that proteins are often have on the order of 10^3 atoms, and
we cannot do atomic level modeling of proteins - we're forced to use
highly heuristic methods that are specifically written to handle only
proteins, and that still have extremely high degrees of inaccuracy.

I refer you back to my earlier posts for a discussion of the scaling
laws and capabilities of various atomic level modeling methods, and
projections of how large a system they'll be able to model in 2050
(none of them reaching the level of an assembler).

cheers,
mez



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