From: Gina Miller (echoz@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon May 17 1999 - 21:16:06 MDT
>From Drexler book Engines of Creation
Universal Assemblers
These second-generation nanomachines - built of more than just proteins -
will do all that proteins can do, and more. In particular, some will serve
as improved devices for assembling molecular structures. Able to tolerate
acid or vacuum, freezing or baking, depending on design, enzyme-like
second-generation machines will be able to use as "tools" almost any of the
reactive molecules used by chemists - but they will wield them with the
precision of programmed machines. They will be able to bond atoms together
in virtually any stable pattern, adding a few at a time to the surface of a
workpiece until a complex structure is complete. Think of such nanomachines
as assemblers.
Because assemblers will let us place atoms in almost any reasonable
arrangement (as discussed in the Notes), they will let us build almost
anything that the laws of nature allow to exist. In particular, they will
let us build almost anything we can design - including more assemblers. The
consequences of this will be profound, because our crude tools have let us
explore only a small part of the range of possibilities that natural law
permits. Assemblers will open a world of new technologies.
Advances in the technologies of medicine, space, computation, and production
- and warfare - all depend on our ability to arrange atoms. With assemblers,
we will be able to remake our world or destroy it. So at this point it seems
wise to step back and look at the prospect as clearly as we can, so we can
be sure that assemblers and nanotechnology are not a mere futurological
mirage.
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
Web Page
http://www.nanoindustries.com
E-mail
echoz@hotmail.com
Alternate E-mail
nanogirl@halcyon.com
"The science of nanotechnology, solutions for the future."
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