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Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization
K. Eric Drexler is the founding father of nanotechnology—the science of engineering on a molecular level. In Radical Abundance, he shows how rapid scientific progress is about to change our world. Thanks to atomically precise manufacturing, we will soon have the power to produce radically more of what people want, and at a lower cost. The result will shake the very foundations of our economy and environment.
Already, scientists have constructed prototypes for circuit boards built of millions of precisely arranged atoms. The advent of this kind of atomic precision promises to change the way we make things—cleanly, inexpensively, and on a global scale. It allows us to imagine a world where solar arrays cost no more than cardboard and aluminum foil, and laptops cost about the same.
A provocative tour of cutting edge science and its implications by the field’s founder and master, Radical Abundance offers a mind-expanding vision of a world hurtling toward an unexpected future.
Already, scientists have constructed prototypes for circuit boards built of millions of precisely arranged atoms. The advent of this kind of atomic precision promises to change the way we make things—cleanly, inexpensively, and on a global scale. It allows us to imagine a world where solar arrays cost no more than cardboard and aluminum foil, and laptops cost about the same.
A provocative tour of cutting edge science and its implications by the field’s founder and master, Radical Abundance offers a mind-expanding vision of a world hurtling toward an unexpected future.
370 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
109 people are currently reading
1722 people want to read
About the author
K. Eric Drexler
11 books108 followersK. Eric Drexler, Ph.D., is a researcher and author whose work focuses on advanced nanotechnologies and directions for current research. His 1981 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences established fundamental principles of molecular design, protein engineering, and productive nanosystems. Drexler’s research in this field has been the basis for numerous journal articles and for books including Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (written for a general audience) and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation (a quantitative, physics-based analysis). He recently served as Chief Technical Consultant to the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, a project of the Battelle Memorial Institute and its participating US National Laboratories. He is currently working in a collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund to explore nanotechnology-based solutions to global problems such as energy and climate change.
Drexler was awarded a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Molecular Nanotechnology (the first degree of its kind; his dissertation was a draft of Nanosystems). Dr. Drexler is currently (2012) an academic visitor at Oxford University. He consults and speaks on how current research can be directed more effectively toward high-payoff objectives, and addresses the implications of emerging technologies for our future, including their use to solve, rather than delay, large-scale problems such as global warming.
Drexler was awarded a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Molecular Nanotechnology (the first degree of its kind; his dissertation was a draft of Nanosystems). Dr. Drexler is currently (2012) an academic visitor at Oxford University. He consults and speaks on how current research can be directed more effectively toward high-payoff objectives, and addresses the implications of emerging technologies for our future, including their use to solve, rather than delay, large-scale problems such as global warming.
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April 6, 2017
Once upon a time a nutty scientist gave a talk called “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.”
The scientist was the wacky and wonderfully entertaining Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, the guy who solved the mystery of the Challenger disaster. It was 1959, and he was not referring to organization charts but, rather, to the bottom of the physical measurement scale. He was referring to atoms and molecules measured in nanometers.
As a student, Eric Drexler took up Feynman’s challenge. He’s the man who crafted the term “nanotechnology” and set off a race for its realization. In Radical Abundance, he sets the record straight on this much-misunderstood field and paints a picture of a possible (not certain) future of plenty for the human race.
It’s important to note at the outset that, despite the implied inevitability of the book’s subtitle, Drexler is not in a class with the boosters of a glorious future such as Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. (I previously reviewed Diamandis’ Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.) Drexler is more level-headed than that. He recognizes the immensity of the challenges facing homo sapiens in the twenty-first century, from the self-inflicted travesty of global climate change, to the danger of massive unemployment once manufacturing is completely automated, to the sheer perversity of human nature in organized settings.
A future of unlimited possibility
At his most expansive, Drexler describes a revolutionary new nanotechnology manufacturing paradigm that could produce such items as ultra-efficient solar energy generators, ultra-safe, zero-emission automobiles, and, presumably, perfectly insulated dwellings with innumerable electronic capabilities — all from simple raw materials such as air, sand, and water.
“Imagine a world,” Drexler writes, “where the gadgets and goods that run our society are produced not in a far-flung supply chain of industrial facilities, but in compact, even desktop-scale, machines. Imagine replacing an enormous automobile factory and all of its multi-million dollar equipment with a garage-size facility that can assemble cars from inexpensive, microscopic parts, with production times measured in minutes. Then imagine that the technologies that can make these visions real are emerging — under many names, behind the scenes, with a long road yet ahead, yet moving surprisingly fast.”
An unfortunate detour along the way
As the author explains at length (and in more than one place, resulting in some duplication), his vision of nanotechnology — enunciated in a scholarly paper at MIT in 1981 and in a widely read book for the public, Engines of Creation, five years later — was a call for Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM). In Drexler’s concept, scientists and engineers a few decades down the road would perfect the techniques of assembling atoms and molecules into minuscule machines capable of crafting slightly larger machines, which would in turn create even larger machines. After numerous generations of ever-more capable machines, the system would turn out all manner of useful items. And the whole manufacturing system would be housed in the equivalent of a box just slightly larger than the products it was designed to manufacture.
Sadly, Drexler’s compelling vision was bowdlerized soon after the publication of Engines of Creation by both journalists who rhapsodized about such things as tiny robots that would rush to a blood clot and demolish it before damage could be done, and science fiction writers who, of course, went much further. You may recall reading about nanobots run wild and becoming “gray goo” that would consume everything in their path, including their creators. Though Drexler protested loudly that this was nonsense, the most colorful of these creations took hold in the public imagination and helped suppress the funding necessary for R&D to bring his vision to fruition.
Even worse happened in 2000 during the transition from the Clinton Administration to that of George W. Bush. Earlier that year, Wired magazine published an article by Bill Joy — a cofounder of Sun Microsystems and one of the country’s most celebrated technologists — warning about the dangers inherent in nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and the creation of sentient robots. Joy’s disquiet was summed up in a single sentence: “robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate.” In effect, Joy had fallen prey to the “gray goo” fallacy. And apparently his fear projected onto the managers of a bill recently passed by Congress to allocate a billion dollars to nanotechnology research: instead of just taking the money and running with it, the custodians of the program rewrote the terms of the grant (after Congress had defined them) so as to rule out any mention of atoms or molecules and instead to redefine nanotechnology as a field dealing with anything really, really small (i.e., measured in nanometers). As a consequence, the field bifurcated into two streams, with the public drowning in all the confusion that came about.
A book for scientists, engineers, and their fans
Radical Abundance covers a lot of territory, from Drexler’s personal intellectual history to the history of technology to the difference between science and engineering as well as his vision of future plenty. However, much of the book requires more than a rudimentary understanding of science. Rather than characterize its audience as the general public, it’s probably fairer to say that those who would gain the most from the book are scientists, engineers, and people who can engage in conversations with them without becoming befuddled. In other words, the book is challenging at times for a reader such as me: my last organized brush with science was half a century ago in college, and what I learned then (little of which I remember) bears little resemblance to science today, anyway. Nonetheless, the prophetic message in Radical Abundance — and the numerous warning signs posted throughout the book — make this invaluable reading for anyone concerned about humanity’s prospects for the future.
The scientist was the wacky and wonderfully entertaining Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, the guy who solved the mystery of the Challenger disaster. It was 1959, and he was not referring to organization charts but, rather, to the bottom of the physical measurement scale. He was referring to atoms and molecules measured in nanometers.
As a student, Eric Drexler took up Feynman’s challenge. He’s the man who crafted the term “nanotechnology” and set off a race for its realization. In Radical Abundance, he sets the record straight on this much-misunderstood field and paints a picture of a possible (not certain) future of plenty for the human race.
It’s important to note at the outset that, despite the implied inevitability of the book’s subtitle, Drexler is not in a class with the boosters of a glorious future such as Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. (I previously reviewed Diamandis’ Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think.) Drexler is more level-headed than that. He recognizes the immensity of the challenges facing homo sapiens in the twenty-first century, from the self-inflicted travesty of global climate change, to the danger of massive unemployment once manufacturing is completely automated, to the sheer perversity of human nature in organized settings.
A future of unlimited possibility
At his most expansive, Drexler describes a revolutionary new nanotechnology manufacturing paradigm that could produce such items as ultra-efficient solar energy generators, ultra-safe, zero-emission automobiles, and, presumably, perfectly insulated dwellings with innumerable electronic capabilities — all from simple raw materials such as air, sand, and water.
“Imagine a world,” Drexler writes, “where the gadgets and goods that run our society are produced not in a far-flung supply chain of industrial facilities, but in compact, even desktop-scale, machines. Imagine replacing an enormous automobile factory and all of its multi-million dollar equipment with a garage-size facility that can assemble cars from inexpensive, microscopic parts, with production times measured in minutes. Then imagine that the technologies that can make these visions real are emerging — under many names, behind the scenes, with a long road yet ahead, yet moving surprisingly fast.”
An unfortunate detour along the way
As the author explains at length (and in more than one place, resulting in some duplication), his vision of nanotechnology — enunciated in a scholarly paper at MIT in 1981 and in a widely read book for the public, Engines of Creation, five years later — was a call for Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM). In Drexler’s concept, scientists and engineers a few decades down the road would perfect the techniques of assembling atoms and molecules into minuscule machines capable of crafting slightly larger machines, which would in turn create even larger machines. After numerous generations of ever-more capable machines, the system would turn out all manner of useful items. And the whole manufacturing system would be housed in the equivalent of a box just slightly larger than the products it was designed to manufacture.
Sadly, Drexler’s compelling vision was bowdlerized soon after the publication of Engines of Creation by both journalists who rhapsodized about such things as tiny robots that would rush to a blood clot and demolish it before damage could be done, and science fiction writers who, of course, went much further. You may recall reading about nanobots run wild and becoming “gray goo” that would consume everything in their path, including their creators. Though Drexler protested loudly that this was nonsense, the most colorful of these creations took hold in the public imagination and helped suppress the funding necessary for R&D to bring his vision to fruition.
Even worse happened in 2000 during the transition from the Clinton Administration to that of George W. Bush. Earlier that year, Wired magazine published an article by Bill Joy — a cofounder of Sun Microsystems and one of the country’s most celebrated technologists — warning about the dangers inherent in nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and the creation of sentient robots. Joy’s disquiet was summed up in a single sentence: “robots, engineered organisms, and nanobots share a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate.” In effect, Joy had fallen prey to the “gray goo” fallacy. And apparently his fear projected onto the managers of a bill recently passed by Congress to allocate a billion dollars to nanotechnology research: instead of just taking the money and running with it, the custodians of the program rewrote the terms of the grant (after Congress had defined them) so as to rule out any mention of atoms or molecules and instead to redefine nanotechnology as a field dealing with anything really, really small (i.e., measured in nanometers). As a consequence, the field bifurcated into two streams, with the public drowning in all the confusion that came about.
A book for scientists, engineers, and their fans
Radical Abundance covers a lot of territory, from Drexler’s personal intellectual history to the history of technology to the difference between science and engineering as well as his vision of future plenty. However, much of the book requires more than a rudimentary understanding of science. Rather than characterize its audience as the general public, it’s probably fairer to say that those who would gain the most from the book are scientists, engineers, and people who can engage in conversations with them without becoming befuddled. In other words, the book is challenging at times for a reader such as me: my last organized brush with science was half a century ago in college, and what I learned then (little of which I remember) bears little resemblance to science today, anyway. Nonetheless, the prophetic message in Radical Abundance — and the numerous warning signs posted throughout the book — make this invaluable reading for anyone concerned about humanity’s prospects for the future.
June 26, 2016
Comecei o livro achando que ele trataria de nanotecnologia e perspectivas recentes, mas encontrei algo bem diferente. Drexler passa a maior parte do tempo definindo como ele é o criador da área e maior autoridade no assunto desde que publicou Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (algo corroborado por outros pesquisadores da área, mas não é bem nesse livro que essa informação precisa estar para ser confiável) e pouco tempo falando sobre nanotecnologia de fato. Depois vem uma grande explicação sobre como o termo nanotecnologia foi cooptado por outras áreas para conseguirem dinheiro que seria direcionado à nanotecnologia molecular (área atual que realmente representa o que Drexler defende).
O livro acaba sendo uma grande defesa de como ele foi mal interpretado e "roubaram" a atenção e o fomento de sua área. O que parece ser bem verdade, mas não contribui muito para tornar o livro interessante e deixa o assunto do título completamente secundário. Outro ponto complicado é que o livro é bem mais longo do que o necessário por conta de digressões em várias direções que mostram como o autor é capaz de fazer várias ligações e tem um domínio de muitas áreas, mas não contribui para o tema também.
No fim, fiquei bem interado das disputas na área, mas ainda preciso de uma boa referência mais popular sobre nanotecnologia.
O livro acaba sendo uma grande defesa de como ele foi mal interpretado e "roubaram" a atenção e o fomento de sua área. O que parece ser bem verdade, mas não contribui muito para tornar o livro interessante e deixa o assunto do título completamente secundário. Outro ponto complicado é que o livro é bem mais longo do que o necessário por conta de digressões em várias direções que mostram como o autor é capaz de fazer várias ligações e tem um domínio de muitas áreas, mas não contribui para o tema também.
No fim, fiquei bem interado das disputas na área, mas ainda preciso de uma boa referência mais popular sobre nanotecnologia.
February 25, 2015
What a frustratingly dull book.
It seemed, on the surface, like a go-to source for a survey of nanotechnology; it is, after all, written by the fellow who coined the term. The author, unfortunately, uses the book as a mere platform to decry the bastardization of the term nanotechnology itself (alas, sometimes words fly way on their own after you coin-and-release!), advocating the more "accurate" term "atomically precise manufacturing" (APM); he goes on, even more sadly, to desperately remind the reader AGAIN and AGAIN that he is the fellow who initially popularized the subject of nanotechnology himself (though it's worth noting that he has done little in the actual technical or theoretical development in the field.)
One positive note: Drexler DOES provide an insightful discussion in the contrasting aspects of science and engineering, in particular, too, providing a nice overview of the methodology of engineering development (though a similar discussion can be found in the more entertaining "Synthetic Biology: A Primer")
I soldiered through, and it was rough. One hopes that there are better surveys out there.
It seemed, on the surface, like a go-to source for a survey of nanotechnology; it is, after all, written by the fellow who coined the term. The author, unfortunately, uses the book as a mere platform to decry the bastardization of the term nanotechnology itself (alas, sometimes words fly way on their own after you coin-and-release!), advocating the more "accurate" term "atomically precise manufacturing" (APM); he goes on, even more sadly, to desperately remind the reader AGAIN and AGAIN that he is the fellow who initially popularized the subject of nanotechnology himself (though it's worth noting that he has done little in the actual technical or theoretical development in the field.)
One positive note: Drexler DOES provide an insightful discussion in the contrasting aspects of science and engineering, in particular, too, providing a nice overview of the methodology of engineering development (though a similar discussion can be found in the more entertaining "Synthetic Biology: A Primer")
I soldiered through, and it was rough. One hopes that there are better surveys out there.
July 8, 2018
A breathless love letter to nanotechnology and "atomically precise manufacturing" that no one asked to read. It has astonishingly little content; the author repeats himself for three hundred pages and seems very pleased with himself for doing so.
October 18, 2020
This book was really an attempt by the author to set the record straight on the original meaning of Nanotechnology and how this has gone array for a myriad of reasons that involved money, power, and circumstance. As does anything.I think would have rather read Engines of Creation as I think this felt like a bit of a rant.
November 25, 2018
I've been following the developments in nanotech since the 90's, when I read Drexler's original book (Engines of Creation). Both that one and the subsequent one (Nanosystems) were better than this one. The technical details he presents in this book were already familiar, as well as the potential for revolution in the manufacture of physical goods and the potential for incredible cost reductions and performance improvements that molecular factories would make possible. The remainder of the book was mainly about the politics of science (like Noble Savages, the last book I reviewed) a subject which is no doubt endlessly fascinating to the participants, but very boring to anyone else. Drexler is upset that people use the term nanotech to include any tech on the nanoscale, since what he meant when he coined the word was atomically precise manufacturing. The former, being easier, has siphoned away a lot of money that could have been spent on the latter.
The most interesting part of the book to me was the contrast of science and technology. Since my work is a hopeless mishmash of both, often technology pretending to be science, I enjoyed his take.
All of my criticisms, though, are of style and presentation. Everything Drexler suggests seems like a good idea that should be heavily funded if possible. He seems quite level-headed despite the limitless potential of the system he describes.
One important idea that I had to work out for myself, that he spends some time on in this book, is how much time speeds up in virtually every way as you shrink down in size. If you think about how systems inside a cell must work, by accidental collisions until the right molecule comes along to latch to, it seems impossible that enough interactions could ever happen for such a system to work. But when you take into account the short distances involved and the associated speed-up possible, it no longer seems so absurd. I must have read a little about this in Engines of Creation, but it wasn't developed in such detail.
What I would have liked was a carefully thought out plan for precisely how modern molecular assembly (I'm thinking of how they use DNA and RNA to make structures) can be used to build atomically precise machines of the type he describes. Such machines seem to have two competing restrictions: they need to be as small as possible to make them assemblable (sp?) one atom at a time, but as large as possible to make them behave more like bulk materials than like chemistry. He makes some vague descriptions, but the technical detail is what I was looking for.
The most interesting part of the book to me was the contrast of science and technology. Since my work is a hopeless mishmash of both, often technology pretending to be science, I enjoyed his take.
All of my criticisms, though, are of style and presentation. Everything Drexler suggests seems like a good idea that should be heavily funded if possible. He seems quite level-headed despite the limitless potential of the system he describes.
One important idea that I had to work out for myself, that he spends some time on in this book, is how much time speeds up in virtually every way as you shrink down in size. If you think about how systems inside a cell must work, by accidental collisions until the right molecule comes along to latch to, it seems impossible that enough interactions could ever happen for such a system to work. But when you take into account the short distances involved and the associated speed-up possible, it no longer seems so absurd. I must have read a little about this in Engines of Creation, but it wasn't developed in such detail.
What I would have liked was a carefully thought out plan for precisely how modern molecular assembly (I'm thinking of how they use DNA and RNA to make structures) can be used to build atomically precise machines of the type he describes. Such machines seem to have two competing restrictions: they need to be as small as possible to make them assemblable (sp?) one atom at a time, but as large as possible to make them behave more like bulk materials than like chemistry. He makes some vague descriptions, but the technical detail is what I was looking for.
February 9, 2015
The deterministic and dry counterpart to the stochastic and wet Creation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1.... Convince yourself this is no crank by looking at his original dissertation http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/Nanosyst.... For a shorter read without the history and politics (which are also important) and philosophy (which is an interesting distraction to a limited audience) see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecula...
I'm glad I found this book because it led me to read these other sources.
Not 5 stars because of style and verbosity. Next time I hope Drexler collaborates with a science writer. I only had patience with the epistemological rhapsody on engineering compared to science because I am separately interested in the topic.
I'm glad I found this book because it led me to read these other sources.
Not 5 stars because of style and verbosity. Next time I hope Drexler collaborates with a science writer. I only had patience with the epistemological rhapsody on engineering compared to science because I am separately interested in the topic.
December 31, 2016
When the author was giving specific information the book was great. Unfortunately those instances were in the minority and the rest of the time the author was speaking in generalizations and meaningless vague language. The "information" in this book mostly fell into a useless middle ground between digestible example or analogy, and technical detail.
The majority of the book reads like the author had personal demons to exorcise, rather than exciting or important information to share. There were certainly a handful of parts that were inspiring or packed with semi-technical information, but the rest of the book was drowned in a muddle of overly intellectual rambling. This book should be edited to cut out or refocus that bulk.
The majority of the book reads like the author had personal demons to exorcise, rather than exciting or important information to share. There were certainly a handful of parts that were inspiring or packed with semi-technical information, but the rest of the book was drowned in a muddle of overly intellectual rambling. This book should be edited to cut out or refocus that bulk.
October 3, 2024
It's hard for me to rate this three stars because it's close to four stars. The book falls short when describing state of the art capabilities (circa 2013). As the URL on the book's dust jacket, www.publicaffairsbooks.com, suggests, it seems to be more about controlling the niche conversation about nanotechnology and the agendas that determine its funding, research, and public opinion. A significant portion of the book is dedicated to an almost peculiarly defensive logomachy about the word "nanotechnology."
I haven't read "Engines of Creation," also by Drexler, but I know of it by reputation. This book seems to contain the same ambition from Drexler, but with the finesse of a PR campaign that may be intimately familiar with "restricted data," a unique legal concept where information potentially influencing nuclear weaponry is automatically classified as 'born secret,' regardless of its origin. This applies even to civilians without security clearance working in fields like physics or mathematics. The Supreme Court case United States v. Progressive, Inc. (1979) established that advancing knowledge in these areas could potentially constitute a capital crime due to its possible impact on nuclear weapons technology. Radical Abundance doesn't deal with this idea at all, but the context of Drexler's book may be within the realm of "restricted data."
The book opens with "An Early Journey of Ideas" that goes through some of the background history, the author's biography, his mentors, the impact of the Malthusian book "Limits to Growth," and Karl Popper, leading to writing his book "The Engines of Creation." Drexler talks about the history of atoms, from Democritus, Lucretius, Brownian Motion, John Dalton, Hermann Emil Fischer, James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Williams, John Kendrew, Max Perutz, and Richard Feynman.
From there, he talks about how the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), founded in 2000 by Clinton, started with the stated goal of working on atomically precise manufacturing (APM) and changed its goal to work on anything that is very small, such as nano-sized particles. Most of the book is devoted to distinguishing the differences between the concepts of these different types of nanotechnology, and the differences between science and engineering.
The big capability that Drexler brushes on, without getting into, is protein engineering. "Protein molecules are solid, nanoscale objects, much like bits of plastic, but with more diverse and intricate structures... in different combinations and sequences, these monomers can form materials as diverse as soft rubber, hard plastic, and fibers stronger than steel (spider silk, for example, is made of protein as is the horn of a bull)." This description of nanotechnology protein engineering immediately makes me think of the microplastics discussed in newspapers today...
The author talks about how he's spoken at scientific conferences, corporate meetings, the White House Office of Science and Technology, the Pentagon, NSA, the Congressional Office of Technology Assment, and at a senate hearing convened by Senator Al Gore. Afterwards, the author talks about the need to explore policies for managing what could be a catastrophic success, with implications for the military sphere demanding careful consideration.
Drexler says "to get a good sense of the nature of the field requires understanding both general physical principles (of bonding, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics) and the particulars of molecular functional groups and how they react. To get a good sense of the state of the art in the field–its current means, ends, capabilities, limitations–requires paying attention to the stream of results in major scientific journals, supplemented with the backstory of research life that comes only from laboratory visits and evening conversations with chemists."
Later on, "waiting for anything like comprehensive knowledge can be a mistake. If transistor-based electronics engineering, for example, had awaited a general understanding of the behavior of electrons in solid materials, there would never have been a transistor technology based on aluminum, silicon dioxide, and silicon."
That being said, to get sense of how the book falls short, turn to page 125. "A scientist wrote an article about nanomachines of the general sort I've described, but he suggested that they couldn't be used in a biological environment because biomolecules would gum up gears and other moving parts." There is no footnote that references the specific article, and it's not in the appendix. Who wrote this article, where can I find it? I don't know-because this information is not in the book. Examples like this abound in Radical Abundance.
While talking about engineering molecule systems, Drexler says "much of the progress in AP macromolecular technologies has been driven by biomedical research because molecular devices are uniquely suited to bimolecular studies." [...] "Billions of dollars have been spent on nanotechnologies, including research on a wide range of small, functional structures, such as quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, metallic plasmonic components, 'magic-size' metal and semiconductor clusters, among many others."
Every major nation now supports nanotechnology research, which includes things in the criteria of dust. In a section called "A Purpose, A Success, And The Birth Of A Monster-Meme" Drexler says "A basis for navigating a difficult societal transition, a basis for developing regulatory mechanisms to oversee a range of potential advanced technologies, and a plan to implement what would amount to a system of arms control." From here, he directs the reader's attention to what he calls an easily avoidable scenario of hypothetical machine swarms dubbed "gray goo."
Drexler talks about a culture of repression with quieter pressures easily hidden from the public record and a lot about the international community. "As an interagency program, the NNI had influence throughout the federal government (not only in NASA)..." [...] "A perception of career risk is enough to induce self-censorship, and within the NNI orbit and against the background of earlier polarization, the risk was real and stifled discussion." […] "In other countries, the aim of joining the global effort to develop something like APM-level technologies naturally translated into supporting domestic research that followed the NNI's lead." [...] "Nanotechnology funding today is nearly at parity across the United States, Europe, and China."
In the chapter "Managing A Catastrophic Success" Drexler says "in the military sphere, in particular, seemingly rational decisions, if informed by incoherent scenarios, could risk disastrous outcomes in pursuit of illusory gains."
The chapter I was most looking forward to was "Security For An Unconventional Future." Drexler says "These technologies, if applied with an adequate measure of wisdom, can provide new means of moderating conflict as well as a means of protecting benign, accountable forms of social order that increase both liberty and security. Nonetheless, these same technologies could easily spur an arms race that precipitates war, or could empower secretive surveillance regimes that threaten even their would-be masters." [...] "It is important to remember, however, that coercion–not killing–is the usual purpose of war. As Sun Tzu said, 'Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting,' and in his best known quotation Clausewitz described war as 'merely the continuation of politics by other means.' ... In effect, wars would be won or lost before they had even begun... Abundant, affordable, non-lethal, remotely operated weapons would go further, severing the link between making war and killing people. With reduced moral qualms, the threshold for action would fall. Because an opponent facing this prospect would therefore have less reason to expect restraint, this side of the equation strengthens the logic of preemption." [...] "The cheaper and more compact these technologies become, the lower the cost for governments to implement dense surveillance networks. In parallel, as surveillance hardware improves, so does software for image recognition– ... And indeed, here in Great Britain I live in a nation that has the highest density of surveillance cameras in the world, both private and installed by the state; meanwhile, deployment of surveillance networks is rolling forward in both the United States and China." [...] "In terms of capabilities, the door is now open to developing and deploying autonomous systems that can observe, recognize, and report persons and events, and can incapacitate, mark, kill, or harass people, whether by program of human intervention, all while collecting evidence for courts–a crucial consideration for a society that demands lawful, accountable governance." [...] "Although advances in surveillance capabilities have demonstrated their potential to erode liberty, they could also be applied with an opposite effect, increasing safety and liberty alike... Debates hinge on whether the infringements on personal liberties are adequately offset by improvements in security, and whether the watchers themselves must be allowed to work in secrecy in order to shore up weaknesses in security systems." [...] "Imagine a world in which substantial terrorist plots can readily be detected and thwarted. An attack would be almost impossible to plan in secrecy, and then (if planned) would be almost impossible to organize, and then (if organized) almost impossible to execute... Can the 'long war' against terrorism be won? Technological trends suggest that the eventual answer will be Yes. If so, then the longer-term challenge won't be to protect populations against attack by outsiders, but to protect the fabric of civil societies against destruction from within, to avoid the entrenchment of an opaque and unaccountable security apparatus of the sort that history suggests threatens everyone, not only society as a whole, but also those who imagine they can control it."
If "Engines of Creation" is famous for making people aware of the radical vision of nanotechnology, "Radical Abundance" should be known as serving as a PR campaign for people who want to talk about and promote nanotechnology while seeking public support and federal funds. Drexler insists nanotechnology should not be about smart dust, but about a vision of approaching atomically precise manufacturing made possible by human cell sized 3D printers. Drexler makes clear that his goal for writing the book is to give people talking points while having a positive impact on the conversation about all forms of nanotechnology, encouraging people to set the record straight to minimize confusion. The last line in the book is "And the first choice that matters is what to say, and to whom, today. What is your plan?"
I haven't read "Engines of Creation," also by Drexler, but I know of it by reputation. This book seems to contain the same ambition from Drexler, but with the finesse of a PR campaign that may be intimately familiar with "restricted data," a unique legal concept where information potentially influencing nuclear weaponry is automatically classified as 'born secret,' regardless of its origin. This applies even to civilians without security clearance working in fields like physics or mathematics. The Supreme Court case United States v. Progressive, Inc. (1979) established that advancing knowledge in these areas could potentially constitute a capital crime due to its possible impact on nuclear weapons technology. Radical Abundance doesn't deal with this idea at all, but the context of Drexler's book may be within the realm of "restricted data."
The book opens with "An Early Journey of Ideas" that goes through some of the background history, the author's biography, his mentors, the impact of the Malthusian book "Limits to Growth," and Karl Popper, leading to writing his book "The Engines of Creation." Drexler talks about the history of atoms, from Democritus, Lucretius, Brownian Motion, John Dalton, Hermann Emil Fischer, James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Williams, John Kendrew, Max Perutz, and Richard Feynman.
From there, he talks about how the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), founded in 2000 by Clinton, started with the stated goal of working on atomically precise manufacturing (APM) and changed its goal to work on anything that is very small, such as nano-sized particles. Most of the book is devoted to distinguishing the differences between the concepts of these different types of nanotechnology, and the differences between science and engineering.
The big capability that Drexler brushes on, without getting into, is protein engineering. "Protein molecules are solid, nanoscale objects, much like bits of plastic, but with more diverse and intricate structures... in different combinations and sequences, these monomers can form materials as diverse as soft rubber, hard plastic, and fibers stronger than steel (spider silk, for example, is made of protein as is the horn of a bull)." This description of nanotechnology protein engineering immediately makes me think of the microplastics discussed in newspapers today...
The author talks about how he's spoken at scientific conferences, corporate meetings, the White House Office of Science and Technology, the Pentagon, NSA, the Congressional Office of Technology Assment, and at a senate hearing convened by Senator Al Gore. Afterwards, the author talks about the need to explore policies for managing what could be a catastrophic success, with implications for the military sphere demanding careful consideration.
Drexler says "to get a good sense of the nature of the field requires understanding both general physical principles (of bonding, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics) and the particulars of molecular functional groups and how they react. To get a good sense of the state of the art in the field–its current means, ends, capabilities, limitations–requires paying attention to the stream of results in major scientific journals, supplemented with the backstory of research life that comes only from laboratory visits and evening conversations with chemists."
Later on, "waiting for anything like comprehensive knowledge can be a mistake. If transistor-based electronics engineering, for example, had awaited a general understanding of the behavior of electrons in solid materials, there would never have been a transistor technology based on aluminum, silicon dioxide, and silicon."
That being said, to get sense of how the book falls short, turn to page 125. "A scientist wrote an article about nanomachines of the general sort I've described, but he suggested that they couldn't be used in a biological environment because biomolecules would gum up gears and other moving parts." There is no footnote that references the specific article, and it's not in the appendix. Who wrote this article, where can I find it? I don't know-because this information is not in the book. Examples like this abound in Radical Abundance.
While talking about engineering molecule systems, Drexler says "much of the progress in AP macromolecular technologies has been driven by biomedical research because molecular devices are uniquely suited to bimolecular studies." [...] "Billions of dollars have been spent on nanotechnologies, including research on a wide range of small, functional structures, such as quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, metallic plasmonic components, 'magic-size' metal and semiconductor clusters, among many others."
Every major nation now supports nanotechnology research, which includes things in the criteria of dust. In a section called "A Purpose, A Success, And The Birth Of A Monster-Meme" Drexler says "A basis for navigating a difficult societal transition, a basis for developing regulatory mechanisms to oversee a range of potential advanced technologies, and a plan to implement what would amount to a system of arms control." From here, he directs the reader's attention to what he calls an easily avoidable scenario of hypothetical machine swarms dubbed "gray goo."
Drexler talks about a culture of repression with quieter pressures easily hidden from the public record and a lot about the international community. "As an interagency program, the NNI had influence throughout the federal government (not only in NASA)..." [...] "A perception of career risk is enough to induce self-censorship, and within the NNI orbit and against the background of earlier polarization, the risk was real and stifled discussion." […] "In other countries, the aim of joining the global effort to develop something like APM-level technologies naturally translated into supporting domestic research that followed the NNI's lead." [...] "Nanotechnology funding today is nearly at parity across the United States, Europe, and China."
In the chapter "Managing A Catastrophic Success" Drexler says "in the military sphere, in particular, seemingly rational decisions, if informed by incoherent scenarios, could risk disastrous outcomes in pursuit of illusory gains."
The chapter I was most looking forward to was "Security For An Unconventional Future." Drexler says "These technologies, if applied with an adequate measure of wisdom, can provide new means of moderating conflict as well as a means of protecting benign, accountable forms of social order that increase both liberty and security. Nonetheless, these same technologies could easily spur an arms race that precipitates war, or could empower secretive surveillance regimes that threaten even their would-be masters." [...] "It is important to remember, however, that coercion–not killing–is the usual purpose of war. As Sun Tzu said, 'Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting,' and in his best known quotation Clausewitz described war as 'merely the continuation of politics by other means.' ... In effect, wars would be won or lost before they had even begun... Abundant, affordable, non-lethal, remotely operated weapons would go further, severing the link between making war and killing people. With reduced moral qualms, the threshold for action would fall. Because an opponent facing this prospect would therefore have less reason to expect restraint, this side of the equation strengthens the logic of preemption." [...] "The cheaper and more compact these technologies become, the lower the cost for governments to implement dense surveillance networks. In parallel, as surveillance hardware improves, so does software for image recognition– ... And indeed, here in Great Britain I live in a nation that has the highest density of surveillance cameras in the world, both private and installed by the state; meanwhile, deployment of surveillance networks is rolling forward in both the United States and China." [...] "In terms of capabilities, the door is now open to developing and deploying autonomous systems that can observe, recognize, and report persons and events, and can incapacitate, mark, kill, or harass people, whether by program of human intervention, all while collecting evidence for courts–a crucial consideration for a society that demands lawful, accountable governance." [...] "Although advances in surveillance capabilities have demonstrated their potential to erode liberty, they could also be applied with an opposite effect, increasing safety and liberty alike... Debates hinge on whether the infringements on personal liberties are adequately offset by improvements in security, and whether the watchers themselves must be allowed to work in secrecy in order to shore up weaknesses in security systems." [...] "Imagine a world in which substantial terrorist plots can readily be detected and thwarted. An attack would be almost impossible to plan in secrecy, and then (if planned) would be almost impossible to organize, and then (if organized) almost impossible to execute... Can the 'long war' against terrorism be won? Technological trends suggest that the eventual answer will be Yes. If so, then the longer-term challenge won't be to protect populations against attack by outsiders, but to protect the fabric of civil societies against destruction from within, to avoid the entrenchment of an opaque and unaccountable security apparatus of the sort that history suggests threatens everyone, not only society as a whole, but also those who imagine they can control it."
If "Engines of Creation" is famous for making people aware of the radical vision of nanotechnology, "Radical Abundance" should be known as serving as a PR campaign for people who want to talk about and promote nanotechnology while seeking public support and federal funds. Drexler insists nanotechnology should not be about smart dust, but about a vision of approaching atomically precise manufacturing made possible by human cell sized 3D printers. Drexler makes clear that his goal for writing the book is to give people talking points while having a positive impact on the conversation about all forms of nanotechnology, encouraging people to set the record straight to minimize confusion. The last line in the book is "And the first choice that matters is what to say, and to whom, today. What is your plan?"
August 3, 2016
Radical Abundance is difficult for non-specialists and fails further on anyone who has not read the author's previous work Engines of Creation.
To start with, the book fails to vivify the usage of nanotechnology despite multiple attempts, partly due to the intricate complex ways in which nanotechnology creates huge benefits and partly due to the way the topic is addressed. Rather than providing a clear vision of a world where this technology dominates - say by hypothesizing the new cars or solar panels or food could work in a world some decades away - the author tries to discuss the benefits through repeated benefits at material science levels. This could be because of the author's previous work which got misrepresented with rather fantastical visions, but the experience should have led the author to be more specific rather than less.
The author spends too much time refuting various misrepresentations - again at rather technical levels - than clearly discussing what the technology is in layman's language. Other diversions into personal experiences also take away more from the book rather than add - once again due to the way the book is structured. Effectively, here is a book from a master who is almost not approachable simply because he knows a lot, has tremendous foresight but is unable to share with those not in the same league.
Of course, an important topic where many could decipher far more than at least this reader could.
To start with, the book fails to vivify the usage of nanotechnology despite multiple attempts, partly due to the intricate complex ways in which nanotechnology creates huge benefits and partly due to the way the topic is addressed. Rather than providing a clear vision of a world where this technology dominates - say by hypothesizing the new cars or solar panels or food could work in a world some decades away - the author tries to discuss the benefits through repeated benefits at material science levels. This could be because of the author's previous work which got misrepresented with rather fantastical visions, but the experience should have led the author to be more specific rather than less.
The author spends too much time refuting various misrepresentations - again at rather technical levels - than clearly discussing what the technology is in layman's language. Other diversions into personal experiences also take away more from the book rather than add - once again due to the way the book is structured. Effectively, here is a book from a master who is almost not approachable simply because he knows a lot, has tremendous foresight but is unable to share with those not in the same league.
Of course, an important topic where many could decipher far more than at least this reader could.
February 9, 2017
This book is about an incredibly exciting subject: nanotechnology. The field is booming and promising. The best way to start exploring it is probably by reading the father of the term itself.
I'm afraid to report, this book was not a good read. I soldiered through pages and pages of repetitions and finally reached the end. The book is long and extremely monotonous. Dexler, who invented the term "nanotechnology," could've written something more exciting on his progeny...
And yet if you are able to cope with the repetitiveness of the text, it is worth reading for those of you interested in Kurzweil's predictions and the potential of new technologies. If you're not as patient as me, many parts can easily be skipped.
I'm afraid to report, this book was not a good read. I soldiered through pages and pages of repetitions and finally reached the end. The book is long and extremely monotonous. Dexler, who invented the term "nanotechnology," could've written something more exciting on his progeny...
And yet if you are able to cope with the repetitiveness of the text, it is worth reading for those of you interested in Kurzweil's predictions and the potential of new technologies. If you're not as patient as me, many parts can easily be skipped.
July 7, 2018
I rarely abandon a book midway, but I just couldn't keep plodding on through this book. I knew when I began that it was an advanced topic, but I wasn't scared off by that awareness. In fact, I did not have difficulty understanding the material being presented, but the delivery was done in such a dry manner that since I am not in this field, I just didn't ever get hooked.
Life is too short to force myself to finish a book when I give it an honest try and fail to find a connection, or have my curiosity piqued sufficiently to commit to completion. So, regrettably this review has not much to offer directly about the material. I remain curious about the topic and will look for other books to give me insight into the topic and how it will transform us.
Life is too short to force myself to finish a book when I give it an honest try and fail to find a connection, or have my curiosity piqued sufficiently to commit to completion. So, regrettably this review has not much to offer directly about the material. I remain curious about the topic and will look for other books to give me insight into the topic and how it will transform us.
August 1, 2020
While I enjoyed this book, it was no Engines of Creation. I feel bad for Drexler, in that after he almost singlehandedly launched nanotechnology into the zeitgeist, the term later steamrollered him. Within a few short years of the publication of his popular work on the subject in 1986, the term "nanotechnology" was on the lips of everyone from the president on down. As a direct result it no longer meant anything close to what Drexler originally intended. Every time he tried to set the record straight, moneyed interests, eager for a big slice of the megabucks Washington was tossing around for "nanotech" research, would slap him down, putting words into his mouth, and accuse him of fearmongering.
Nanotechnology came to be associated with anything sufficiently small. Got microbeads in your lotion? Hey, that's Nanotechnology! Laundry detergent with enzymes to break up grease, that's also Nanotechnology. Science fiction also took up the ball and ran with it, portraying out of control molecular machines dissolving the world in grey goo, in much the same way that Stephen King wrote about demonic cars that magically drove themselves. All hokum, Drexler said, but who was going to listen to the man who invented the subject?
Now, rather than try to rescue the term he (mostly) invented, he let the popular media have it. He has come back to the same subject with a new, more accurate name: Atomically Precise Manufacturing, (APM). Radical Abundance goes to great pains not only to describe what APM is, but what it isn't. It isn't tiny, self-replicating robots turning the world into paperclips. Nor is it little submarines, swimming through our capillaries, scrubbing away the cholesterol. (I'm still not sure this couldn't happen, but it isn't what Drexler has in mind regarding APM).
Exactly what Drexler does have in mind is a bit hard to parse out though. He spends a lot of time writing about frequency of operations, covalent bonding, building components of monomers, foldamers, and so on. It isn't until quite late in the book that we get a clear look at his overall system architecture. And the best way to describe it is this: Go to You Tube, (or your favorite video streaming service), and type into the search bar "assembly line machinery". You'll see conveyor belts, carousels, wire bending machines, chains and trains of little trays and boxes whizzing past each other and snapping components together, all faster than the eye can follow, and without any human intervention. This is how all consumer products are made, from squirt bottles to pillows to bread loaves. Drexler describes the exact same thing going on, only at the molecular level. Carefully designed molecules whizzing by in assembly line fashion, snapping into place with other carefully designed molecules, until somewhat larger, more useful products are formed. These are then fed into other lines and assembled into larger components, and so on, until some recognizable thing pops out the end, is bagged and tagged, and sent off to the consumer. At the very smallest end of this assembly line, hundreds of billions of assemblers are lined up, all operating at frequencies similar to those of microprocessors. That is to say, billions of operations per second. The speed is so fast because the range of motions is so infinitesimal. As Drexler puts it, a "normal sized" machine moving at 1 meter per second, and a molecular machine moving at 1 nanometer per nanosecond, are both moving at the exact same speed. If the larger machine moves through an entire stroke of one meter, it will take it one full second to complete the operation. Similarly, a molecular machine, moving at the same speed, moving through a stroke of 1 nm, will perform a billion operations per second. A billion of these machines, lined up side by side, will produce 1 meter of product per second. The economics of scale are, as the title of the book implies, radically abundant.
This type of process is no more likely to pull itself up from its substrate and rampage across the land than a normal assembly line could pull itself up from the concrete factory floor and turn the world into biscuits.
Still, the transformative effect on industry will be colossal. Simple materials made this way will be not simply stronger, but molecularly precise. There will be little waste, as the process uses exactly the material it needs, molecule by molecule, and nothing else. Further, the products it makes can be reversed. That is to say, they may be taken back apart and returned to feed stocks using the same mechanisms. (Alas, this only works on things built using this process. You can't pour a dumpster full of pizza boxes in one end and spit out a Mercedes Benz on the other).
Radical Abundance does not go into any detail at all on the kinds of products that APM may be used for, other than a few words on photovoltaic cells and stronger, lighter construction materials. Instead he proposes that every kind of product made by industry today, can be made by APM, better, faster, and cheaper. And not just a little bit, we may gain by several orders of magnitude on all three of these metrics, quality, speed, and cost reduction. Even energy use in production will be reduced by orders of magnitude. Drexler spends several chapters reflecting on the dramatic changes this will have on every corner of society. And not necessarily for the better, if we're not careful. Entire economic sectors will fold up and disappear forever, with nothing to replace them. The economic chaos that may arise from radical abundance could lead to what Drexler terms "catastrophic success". The economic models we use to manage modern supply chains and distribution networks are designed to operate in a world of material scarcity. They are simply not up to the task of handling radical abundance. If new models are not developed to account for the new tools that will soon be at our disposal, a world of abundance will not necessarily be a world of ease. And we are better off examining our options now, as these new tools are coming, whether we want them or not.
Nanotechnology came to be associated with anything sufficiently small. Got microbeads in your lotion? Hey, that's Nanotechnology! Laundry detergent with enzymes to break up grease, that's also Nanotechnology. Science fiction also took up the ball and ran with it, portraying out of control molecular machines dissolving the world in grey goo, in much the same way that Stephen King wrote about demonic cars that magically drove themselves. All hokum, Drexler said, but who was going to listen to the man who invented the subject?
Now, rather than try to rescue the term he (mostly) invented, he let the popular media have it. He has come back to the same subject with a new, more accurate name: Atomically Precise Manufacturing, (APM). Radical Abundance goes to great pains not only to describe what APM is, but what it isn't. It isn't tiny, self-replicating robots turning the world into paperclips. Nor is it little submarines, swimming through our capillaries, scrubbing away the cholesterol. (I'm still not sure this couldn't happen, but it isn't what Drexler has in mind regarding APM).
Exactly what Drexler does have in mind is a bit hard to parse out though. He spends a lot of time writing about frequency of operations, covalent bonding, building components of monomers, foldamers, and so on. It isn't until quite late in the book that we get a clear look at his overall system architecture. And the best way to describe it is this: Go to You Tube, (or your favorite video streaming service), and type into the search bar "assembly line machinery". You'll see conveyor belts, carousels, wire bending machines, chains and trains of little trays and boxes whizzing past each other and snapping components together, all faster than the eye can follow, and without any human intervention. This is how all consumer products are made, from squirt bottles to pillows to bread loaves. Drexler describes the exact same thing going on, only at the molecular level. Carefully designed molecules whizzing by in assembly line fashion, snapping into place with other carefully designed molecules, until somewhat larger, more useful products are formed. These are then fed into other lines and assembled into larger components, and so on, until some recognizable thing pops out the end, is bagged and tagged, and sent off to the consumer. At the very smallest end of this assembly line, hundreds of billions of assemblers are lined up, all operating at frequencies similar to those of microprocessors. That is to say, billions of operations per second. The speed is so fast because the range of motions is so infinitesimal. As Drexler puts it, a "normal sized" machine moving at 1 meter per second, and a molecular machine moving at 1 nanometer per nanosecond, are both moving at the exact same speed. If the larger machine moves through an entire stroke of one meter, it will take it one full second to complete the operation. Similarly, a molecular machine, moving at the same speed, moving through a stroke of 1 nm, will perform a billion operations per second. A billion of these machines, lined up side by side, will produce 1 meter of product per second. The economics of scale are, as the title of the book implies, radically abundant.
This type of process is no more likely to pull itself up from its substrate and rampage across the land than a normal assembly line could pull itself up from the concrete factory floor and turn the world into biscuits.
Still, the transformative effect on industry will be colossal. Simple materials made this way will be not simply stronger, but molecularly precise. There will be little waste, as the process uses exactly the material it needs, molecule by molecule, and nothing else. Further, the products it makes can be reversed. That is to say, they may be taken back apart and returned to feed stocks using the same mechanisms. (Alas, this only works on things built using this process. You can't pour a dumpster full of pizza boxes in one end and spit out a Mercedes Benz on the other).
Radical Abundance does not go into any detail at all on the kinds of products that APM may be used for, other than a few words on photovoltaic cells and stronger, lighter construction materials. Instead he proposes that every kind of product made by industry today, can be made by APM, better, faster, and cheaper. And not just a little bit, we may gain by several orders of magnitude on all three of these metrics, quality, speed, and cost reduction. Even energy use in production will be reduced by orders of magnitude. Drexler spends several chapters reflecting on the dramatic changes this will have on every corner of society. And not necessarily for the better, if we're not careful. Entire economic sectors will fold up and disappear forever, with nothing to replace them. The economic chaos that may arise from radical abundance could lead to what Drexler terms "catastrophic success". The economic models we use to manage modern supply chains and distribution networks are designed to operate in a world of material scarcity. They are simply not up to the task of handling radical abundance. If new models are not developed to account for the new tools that will soon be at our disposal, a world of abundance will not necessarily be a world of ease. And we are better off examining our options now, as these new tools are coming, whether we want them or not.
Want to read
March 18, 2016Waitbutwhy blog: "Nanotech became a serious field for the first time in 1986, when engineer Eric Drexler provided its foundations in his seminal book Engines of Creation, but Drexler suggests that those looking to learn about the most modern ideas in nanotechnology would be best off reading his 2013 book, Radical Abundance."
March 6, 2018
The father of nanotechnology follows up his seminal book and shows how we're not far away from a manufacturing revolution that will change our lives forever. Forget artificial intelligence Atomic Precision Manufacturing is what will immediately change the world in the short and long term
June 5, 2013
This book is so full of unsubstantiated generalities, that it is unreadable.
Some very strange ideas - the clashing concerns of science and engineering.
I took nothing away from it.
Some very strange ideas - the clashing concerns of science and engineering.
I took nothing away from it.
March 31, 2018
Definitely not my favorite book. The subject is complicated, and this book did little to untangle the knot.
July 30, 2019
Read this book to understand the implications of nanotechnology!
The author, K Eric Drexler in his first book “Engines of Creation, In 1987, named the phenomenon now known as Nanotechnology.
In this book and the previous one he postulates that Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM) will change our world. He said:...”It will amount to a Version 2.0 of World Civilization, a change as profound as the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding at internet speed.”
And...”we as a society would be well advised to devote urgent and sober attention to the changes that lie ahead, taking into account of what can be known and the limits of knowledge as well.”
What is Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM)?
It is the process of making materials by directing the assembly of atoms! It’s actually not new, our bodies now and always have done that. For example, our bodies’ proteins are manufactured by the stringing together amino acids directed by RNA messengers from our DNA.
Another analogy: The information revolution came about when digits (0’s and 1’s) directed words, sounds, pictures to create and distribute information. The author asserts that APM is analogous. In 1987 he described assembly of atoms with a new process he called nanotechnology. He predicted that this technology would change manufacturing in ways that will be orders-of-magnitude cheaper, more rapid to build, with less human work requirement!
So, what if we become “really good at making material things” by directing the assembly of atoms?
”Our relationship with the material world would change in ways beyond imagination, yet in some ways familiar.” For example, he analogizes that the digitally produced radical abundance of symphony and song—and words and images and more, has brought luxuries, that once required the wealth of a king, to ordinary people in billions of households.
Then he postulates,...”it seems that our future holds a comparable technology driven transformation, enabled by nanoscale devices, but this time with atoms in place of bits.” “The revolution that follows can bring a radical abundance beyond the dreams of any king, a post-industrial material abundance that reaches the ends of the Earth and lightens it’s burden.”
The author cannot be accused of having a small vision!
But science is actively chasing his vision, e.g. patent offices around the world have been swamped with nanotechnology-related applications, though not necessarily APM! The author claims that the term nanotechnology has sometimes misused for marketing reasons.
Drexler must be on to something grand indeed, his book only describes his thesis though APM is being validated steadily!
Nonetheless it is clear that we are only-now finding our way. “It is imperative that national and international regulatory bodies, academia and industry endeavor to develop common terminology and uniform standards and to promulgate an effective framework for health and environmental risk assessment of this technology.”
The question is? Can we keep this “genie in a bottle?” Is there really a genie? Do we want to keep her hidden? Or, should we just let her out?
Wow!
Add this to rapid advancement of other breakthrough technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Gene Editing Tools like CRISPR-Cas9 and hold on for the ride of a partial life time, and then another partial, and then another, three rides per lifetime, at accelerating pace!!
I was born in 1942, since then the world has become nuclear, humans went to the moon, we developed computing, digitalized data, sequenced the genome, connected the world with fiber, created the internet standards as made human connection ubiquitous worldwide, etc.
And we ain’t seen nothing yet!
Can we manage this much change if APM is real and the projections are accurate? I’m worried! Weaponization and/or unintended consequences are the principal risk!
I hope we and our progeny are up to all of this rapid change!
The author, K Eric Drexler in his first book “Engines of Creation, In 1987, named the phenomenon now known as Nanotechnology.
In this book and the previous one he postulates that Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM) will change our world. He said:...”It will amount to a Version 2.0 of World Civilization, a change as profound as the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding at internet speed.”
And...”we as a society would be well advised to devote urgent and sober attention to the changes that lie ahead, taking into account of what can be known and the limits of knowledge as well.”
What is Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM)?
It is the process of making materials by directing the assembly of atoms! It’s actually not new, our bodies now and always have done that. For example, our bodies’ proteins are manufactured by the stringing together amino acids directed by RNA messengers from our DNA.
Another analogy: The information revolution came about when digits (0’s and 1’s) directed words, sounds, pictures to create and distribute information. The author asserts that APM is analogous. In 1987 he described assembly of atoms with a new process he called nanotechnology. He predicted that this technology would change manufacturing in ways that will be orders-of-magnitude cheaper, more rapid to build, with less human work requirement!
So, what if we become “really good at making material things” by directing the assembly of atoms?
”Our relationship with the material world would change in ways beyond imagination, yet in some ways familiar.” For example, he analogizes that the digitally produced radical abundance of symphony and song—and words and images and more, has brought luxuries, that once required the wealth of a king, to ordinary people in billions of households.
Then he postulates,...”it seems that our future holds a comparable technology driven transformation, enabled by nanoscale devices, but this time with atoms in place of bits.” “The revolution that follows can bring a radical abundance beyond the dreams of any king, a post-industrial material abundance that reaches the ends of the Earth and lightens it’s burden.”
The author cannot be accused of having a small vision!
But science is actively chasing his vision, e.g. patent offices around the world have been swamped with nanotechnology-related applications, though not necessarily APM! The author claims that the term nanotechnology has sometimes misused for marketing reasons.
Drexler must be on to something grand indeed, his book only describes his thesis though APM is being validated steadily!
Nonetheless it is clear that we are only-now finding our way. “It is imperative that national and international regulatory bodies, academia and industry endeavor to develop common terminology and uniform standards and to promulgate an effective framework for health and environmental risk assessment of this technology.”
The question is? Can we keep this “genie in a bottle?” Is there really a genie? Do we want to keep her hidden? Or, should we just let her out?
Wow!
Add this to rapid advancement of other breakthrough technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Gene Editing Tools like CRISPR-Cas9 and hold on for the ride of a partial life time, and then another partial, and then another, three rides per lifetime, at accelerating pace!!
I was born in 1942, since then the world has become nuclear, humans went to the moon, we developed computing, digitalized data, sequenced the genome, connected the world with fiber, created the internet standards as made human connection ubiquitous worldwide, etc.
And we ain’t seen nothing yet!
Can we manage this much change if APM is real and the projections are accurate? I’m worried! Weaponization and/or unintended consequences are the principal risk!
I hope we and our progeny are up to all of this rapid change!
April 13, 2024
Surely, the prospective reader thinks, if you want to learn about this field, you go to the godfather and dig into his latest book.
That would be a mistake. Aside from a few highlights, this was a dull drudge through acres of highly repetitive score-settling. It may shock you to learn that some feckless "others" ran away with the term he coined and absconded with a wad of Clinton-era science funding. Oh, what might have been, yadda yadda.
When the axe grinding paused, there was an excellent intuitive description of the world of things smaller than we can see. Perfect for those of us who can't keep our micro's and nano's straight, and unaware of the need to scale the time dimension in the opposite direction to keep things in proportion. There was also a decent description of a nano-factory of the future.
But then the goodness stopped and the arm-waving kicked into high gear. What you were left with was an odd pastiche. An interesting primer on the field, with the sort of useful way-of-thinking about it that you get from real experts, plus a dash of moaning, a lot of arm-waving about what could be, and a feeling that the target audience was a bunch of DC policy makers.
Ultimately aside from the best guided tour of the invisible world since Raquel Welch took us on the Fantastic Voyage, it was a deeply unsatisfying read. If you want to learn about what is possible from nano-tech and when the miracles might be arriving, look elsewhere.
That would be a mistake. Aside from a few highlights, this was a dull drudge through acres of highly repetitive score-settling. It may shock you to learn that some feckless "others" ran away with the term he coined and absconded with a wad of Clinton-era science funding. Oh, what might have been, yadda yadda.
When the axe grinding paused, there was an excellent intuitive description of the world of things smaller than we can see. Perfect for those of us who can't keep our micro's and nano's straight, and unaware of the need to scale the time dimension in the opposite direction to keep things in proportion. There was also a decent description of a nano-factory of the future.
But then the goodness stopped and the arm-waving kicked into high gear. What you were left with was an odd pastiche. An interesting primer on the field, with the sort of useful way-of-thinking about it that you get from real experts, plus a dash of moaning, a lot of arm-waving about what could be, and a feeling that the target audience was a bunch of DC policy makers.
Ultimately aside from the best guided tour of the invisible world since Raquel Welch took us on the Fantastic Voyage, it was a deeply unsatisfying read. If you want to learn about what is possible from nano-tech and when the miracles might be arriving, look elsewhere.
June 8, 2020
I liked this book mainly for the reason that it introduced me to the world of nanotechnology and not the broad aspect of it but what it was originally meant to be, aka machines that work at the atomically precise level.
I think the book was a bit of a higher level read for me because I found myself getting lost a lot of the time. I did understand some of it though and I think it does a good job getting the information across when it comes to the roadblocks and the future of APM technology.
I did find a lot of the information to be repetitive and I felt a lot of the different chapter were saying the same the and again that could be because it was a higher read for me but this is why I gave it a three out of five.
Overall if you are really into future tech and want to get into it, I feel this was a good book to read on nanotechnology.
I think the book was a bit of a higher level read for me because I found myself getting lost a lot of the time. I did understand some of it though and I think it does a good job getting the information across when it comes to the roadblocks and the future of APM technology.
I did find a lot of the information to be repetitive and I felt a lot of the different chapter were saying the same the and again that could be because it was a higher read for me but this is why I gave it a three out of five.
Overall if you are really into future tech and want to get into it, I feel this was a good book to read on nanotechnology.
September 19, 2024
Drexler has a profound grasp of the potential of nanotechnology and ATM (atomically precise manufacturing), and its influence on society. Few see what is coming. I share his opinion that our short-term focus on incremental and perhaps merely symbolic treatments of climate issues, toxic waste management, efficient energy production, and diminishing resources has distracted us from real progress in ATM that could nullify all these problems. The other impact he discusses is the impact of ATM’s influence on a society where scarcity has become a soon-forgotten thing of the past. Always clear and discerning, and often clever in his delivery, I found Drexler’s writing a bit uneven and repetitive, but his many insights are gems. Unfortunately, his transcendent vision may be too creative for hidebound politicians preferring feel-good over effective. A great read for those open to future ideas.
February 3, 2024
Interesting book, but boring, boring, boring to read, but it has plenty of new developments from his first effort "Engines of Creation", which is a magnificent book. The author goes on further details on the applications and impacts that the technology would have on our life and current affairs, he is way rosier on the application of these techniques, but more interestingly he suggests that his research was highly sabotaged, well if this research would be a complete game changer in geopolitics and render capitalism as useless, than I wonder why the research of sabotaged, and possibly could be running secretly, without any prying eyes, as it would guarantee the upper hand to the group who owns such strategic advantage.
June 23, 2018
This book is a very good broad overview of APM technology and what it will be able to do one day in the future. However, it offers very little in terms of specific developments, emerging areas or topics that need more research in order to make radical abundance a reality. Saying that, I did love the way the author describes the difference between engineering and research, and will be using that same analogies when I teach my students.
May 8, 2023
What a surprisingly disappointing book. The first 80% of the book is review of chemistry and a little thermodynamics. If you need review in these topics it's well done and clear. I was hoping the last 20% would shed light on APM (atomically precise manufacturing), but it doesn't. It only repeats, many times, that APM is really, really important and once we advance in this area, great things will happen.
March 25, 2022
Greatly suited for an engineering/science disciplined reader. Drexler picks up where his previous book of 20 years earlier has developed. He breaks down starting with fundamentals and carries through production, and even into the self-replication that would need AI assistance. He leaves a dedicated chapter at the end for the post-grad.
July 26, 2023
This would have been a fascinating informative and entertaining book about Atomic Precision Machines but instead turned into yet another giant book of an academics opinions, including many with which its readers will disagree. It's too bad when a smart person makes the mistake their knowledge of a subject gives them the right to lecture their readers on their favorite opinions/beliefs.
April 4, 2021
The book is too long for the idea author tried to convey. Many ideas were repeated. I did enjoy reading the book, but the author could express himself in 200 pages. Also, he could add some examples of the progress and possible next steps.
May 10, 2022
Unless you put a time bound on it it's not a prediction. Of course at some point humanity will create nano-machines (unless, we kill ourselves first). The question is when and how and the author does not hazard any guesses. Very wise.
October 3, 2019
This book has incredible, paradigm-shifting ideas. At the same time, the style of writing is at times obtuse, long-winded, and incredibly repetitive. Still, I highly recommend that everyone read it.
May 6, 2020
I couldn’t get into this book. Author talks about his past experiences rather than about the subject
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