On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Robin Hanson wrote:
> Surely you could spare $20 to invest couldn't you?
Hmmmm 4 movies.... Depends whether they were as interesting as the X-men.
:-)
> I admit to being one
> of the people betting against early success here - I currently have offers
> out to sell the "Prize won by 2010" claim at 30%. Care to elaborate on your
> reasons for optimism? To me it seems quite challenging to within ten years
> design and construct 32 copies each of a robot arm capable of .1 nanometer
> positional accuracy which fits within a 100 nm cube, and of an 8-bit binary
> adder which fits within a 50 nm cube.
I'm going to have to check the details on the prizes to determine whether
these are "splitable". The robot arm I am much less optimistic about,
but the adder I'd want to do some calculations on the atomic diagram Mitre
has for a 1-bit adder to see if 8 of them will fit in the cube.
(The wording on this may get sticky -- what if it occupies 100 nm^2
but is only 10 nm thick?) If that is allowed, then the question becomes
can they synthesize them and lay them out so they function. If it really
has to occupy a 50nm cube, then it probably is much more difficult.
Robert
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