Marty's Singularity Blog
The Singularity is happening now!
July 8, 2010 at 11:07 pm
filed under Nanotechnology, Singularity
Tagged Nanotechnology, Singularity
“Nano-“ is a prefix that is used to indicate 10-9 or one billionth. So a nanometer is one billionth of a meter and a nanosecond is one billionth of a second. The sizes of individual atoms and molecules are at the nanometer scale.
Nanotechnology is technology that is implemented at the nanometer scale. Currently most nanotechnology is what is sometimes termed weak nanotechnology. We can build things that have dimensions measured in nanometers but we still build them with traditional bulk technologies. A good example of this is integrated circuits. The latest integrated circuits have features whose dimensions are in the range of approximately 30 nanometers. These integrated circuits are built with technologies similar to those that have been used for many years, mainly photolithography and chemical masks. The smaller dimensions have been achieved by improving the technologies.
However, a whole new set of technologies have been conceived and research is going on in numerous countries to develop them. This research will eventually lead to what can be called strong nanotechnology. These technologies will allow us to build things atom by atom or molecule by molecule. The differences between weak and strong nanotech will be far more dramatic than the difference between a horse-drawn carriage and a modern automobile.
One difference is the contrast between any bulk technology and the exquisite precision promised by strong nanotechnology. Bulk technology is very wasteful, both of raw materials and of energy. The making of steel is a classic bulk technology. It requires mining of iron ore and coal, transport of all this raw material and of the final product over hundreds or even thousands of miles, huge manufacturing plants, high temperatures with the resultant waste heat, dangerous working conditions, and pollution on a large scale. On the other hand, once we have strong nanotechnology we will be able to build materials far stronger, more flexible, and much lighter than steel, and we well be able to build them atom-by-atom. There will be no waste of material and very little if any waste of energy. Large scale mining and transportation of uncounted tons of raw material and finished product will be a thing of the past. Strong nanotech promises to be the ultimate green technology.
Another difference is that having machines that operate at the molecular or atomic level will open up enormous areas of applications that were unimaginable until recently. The applications in medicine alone are mind-boggling. We will have machines that can actually perform therapy inside cells. We will be able to target diseased cells one-by-one and never harm healthy cells. Scatter-shot therapies such as chemotherapy and radiation for cancer will soon be as obsolete as bleeding or lobotomies.
Possibly the best news about all this is that it is not that far away. Knowledgeable observers estimate that strong nanotech will be widely available in twenty to fifty years.
Here are two introductions to nanotechnology. The first, There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom, is the transcript of a speech given by Richard Feynman in 1959. The second is the full text of Engines of Creation, a book by Eric Drexler published in 1986. This book popularized the term nanotechnology and laid out in some detail many of its possibilities.
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