From: Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Fri Dec 11 1998 - 15:46:08 MST
Billy Brown writes:
> those who have no money. By the time we have even moderately advanced
> nanotech, providing a 20th century standard of living to those who can't
There cannot be any such thing as 'moderately advanced' nanotech, at
least not for long. In fact, the second assembler after the (cruddish)
bootstrap assembler will be already highly sophisticated, because by
then the design space would have been pretty thoroughly explored by
human artifexes equipped with design tools (the fun may indeed start
pretty soon, if OpenChem indeed gets off ground in finite time). We
also now have the outline specification for the optimal 'omega'
computational hardware (funny thing, looks exactly like a reversible
3d CA in molecular circuitry to me -- I also don't see the fuss about
bit erasure, as a lot of very useful computations are perfectly
reversible), which can be immediately piped into the design iteration
loop, in its instance as reality simulator (fitness function) and
GA (structure generation). You don't need much resources to start
that runaway loop, a small team or a single competent person
should suffice. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if NanoCAD packages
would soon to be declared munitions, but I guess they will have leaked
out via the Open Source model before the bureucrats realize what is
going on. (At least that's what I hope).
And what is going on?
Nanotechnology Volume 9 Number 3 September 1998, a very fine issue.
Molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics analysis of Drexler-Merkle
gears and neon pump.*
Nanoscale electronic devices on carbon nanotubes.*
Semiconductor nanoparticles for quantum devices.
Ultimate theoretical models for nanocomputers.*
Making electrical contact to single molecules.
Energetics, structure, mechanical and vibrational properties of
single-walled carbon nanotubes.**
Machine-phase fullerene technology*.
Regulation of cell functions by micropattern-immobilized biosignal
molecules.
Signal-response gating by a polyelectrolyte pelage on a nanoporous
membrane.
Nanoscale control and detection of electric dipoles in organic
molecules.
The logical core architecture.
Towards a light-addressable transduces bacteriorhodopsin-based.
Langmuir-Schaefer films of poly(o-anisidine) conducting polymer for
sensors and displays.
Direct and controlled manipulation of nanometer-sized particles using
non-contact atomic force microscope.
Molecular scale electronics: syntheses and testing.
Protein fragmentation due to slow highly charged ion impact.
New motifs in DNA nanotechnology.
Combining agoric and genetic methods in stochastic designs.
Theoretical studies of diamond mechanosynthesis reactions**
Uracil as an alternative to 5-fluorocytosine in addressable protein
targeting.
I don't have to tell you which ones are HOT (starred items reflect
some of my preferences, I have not yet studied the issue wholly).
It seems to me that we are rapidly approaching the point where the
first prototype design will be exhaustively validated by computational
means. After that, all hell will break lose: funding, which is lavish
even now, will grow astronomical.
If you're a neoluddite, be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
'gene
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