杏吧原创

EVERYONE鈥橲 seen them, they have even graced the pages of New 杏吧原创 on several occasions 鈥� those scanning tunnelling micrographs showing the wonders of nanotechnology. 鈥淣anoman鈥�, the letters IBM spelt out on a sheet of noble metal in just thirty or so xenon atoms, the world鈥檚 smallest atlas of the western hemisphere (of course), and the artificial atom came into existence 鈥� a hole in a crystal lattice in which electrons can be held as if in a real atom.

But has anyone seen a meat machine? Has anyone in fact got something in their kitchen the size of a microwave oven with a vat on top into which you pour kitchen scraps and a spot of solvent? You do a bit of programming and out pops the Sunday roast. And where is that high-definition, full colour flat-screen 3D television we have all been waiting for? According to the vision of K. Eric Drexler, the guru of nanotechnology, we have not really got that long to wait before everyone will have such devices. Then all the world鈥檚 ills will be vanquished. Toil, misery and the pitifully short human lifespan will be but vague memories.

We are already half way there, as nanoman, IBM and nanoscale maps and the artificial atom testify. It is not such a leap of the imagination from arranging a few atoms on a surface in a high vacuum at 4 kelvin with a scanning tunnel microscope to building a molecular machine that can self replicate and 鈥渁ssemble鈥� atoms into the appropriate arrangement for a roast dinner.

What is bizarre about all this is not that it sounds like trekkie science fiction, but that there is a growing clan of missionaries, or followers of Drexler, who are spreading the nano-word. Ed Regis is a 鈥渢rained professional philosopher鈥� say the sleeve notes of Nano!, and he follows in great detail the development of Drexler鈥檚 vision. The book is a fascinating biography of a promising idea.

He takes us to Capitol Hill, Washington DC, where Drexler explains to Vice President Al Gore鈥檚 Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on just how devices made from a few atoms will change the world 鈥� making space travel common, banishing disease and providing all the needs of the human race. He takes us back to Drexler鈥檚 days at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where his devoted band of followers began to grow. We learn that nanotechnology is inevitable. If the scanning tunnelling microscopy route is blocked, then supramolecular chemistry will be the way to go. If we get lost on that road then another diversion will appear.

Drexler reckons the journey will take us fifteen years or so. Who is to say that he will not be right? After all, it is only forty years since the discovery of DNA鈥檚 structure, and scientists can already manipulate genes with relative ease and have them expressed by laboratory bacteria to make a chosen protein. Drexler鈥檚 assemblers cannot be so far off if we can already move single atoms and control chemistry. Of course, Regis tells the reader countless times that cynicism is pointless. This is because Drexler has gone into so much technical detail in his books, papers and talks that he leaves no gaps in his logic, making the whole world of nanotechnology sound inevitable. He would say my views are locked in the old technology of the large, bucket chemistry, rather than in the new, the nano.

Regis defends Drexler because he has covered every base, from 鈥渃ontinuum models of van der Waals attraction鈥�, 鈥渋nterfacial phonon-phonon scattering鈥� and 鈥渁lkene and alkyne cycloadditions鈥� to 鈥渇inite-state machine structure and kinetics鈥�. So there. Obviously, if we accept that everything has already been discussed, nanotechnology must be just round the corner. All the world鈥檚 scientists and engineers have simply missed the point in dismissing Drexler鈥檚 ideas as science fiction.

There will be nanotechnology 鈥� devices made up of a few atoms that act as switches and logic gates in supercomputers based on molecules rather than etched silicon wafers. Chemists are already using molecular recognition and self-assembly to make these things and more. But, impressive as these achievements are, we are still many, many nanometres away from making, from scratch, anything so complex as one of nature鈥檚 most simple self-assembler: a virus. How can we possibly be only fifteen years from Drexler鈥檚 meat machine?

Countless critics more qualified than me have cast aspersions on seemingly far fetched ideas, only to find a few years later that the molecular model on the computer screen has become reality. The notion of genetic engineering is a case in point. In the early 1970s, no one would have believed that splicing a slice of one organism鈥檚 DNA into another would be possible, let alone that it would enable the second organism to produce alien proteins to cure a disease or protect itself from being eaten.

Regis believes in Drexler. And as he takes us through the logic of the nanoplan, you cannot help but hope that cynicism is indeed founded in the old technology. Perhaps the truly new technology is just round the corner and we will find ourselves inhabiting a world where tiny 鈥渁ssemblers鈥� do all the work, cure our ills and provide for all our needs. Any social problems that arise with everyone living for thousands of years and having so much leisure time would surely be short term. There would, after all, just be more time for creativity and anyone who wanted to work still could.

I had hoped that Regis would turn up some aspect of the new technology that I had missed 鈥� something more than nanoman and nanomaps that would make me more inclined to believe it鈥檚 all going to happen in my lifetime, something simple, for example the creation, rather than the blueprint, of a molecular device that is injected into an artery and scrubs away cholesterol plaques. But nothing new turns up in this hook. Nano! fades out with an essay about how the human race could cope with near 鈥渋mmortality鈥� and so much free time 鈥� imagine a summer Sunday in leafy suburbia 鈥�

As with cynics in the past, who have been made to eat their words by the amazing speed of technological development, I shall conclude with a statement that will surely bring nanotechnology to the fore even more quickly than Drexler expects. It will make me look a fool when I鈥檓 creating my Sunday roast from pieces of old tyres and kitchen scraps. Imagine how big a light year seems to nanoman: that鈥檚 how far we have to go before we realise Drexler鈥檚 dream.