Kim
Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known
for popularizing the potential of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from
the 1970s and
1980s.
K. Eric Drexler
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known for popularizing the potential of
molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and published as the book
Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992), which received the
Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.
Life and work
K. Eric Drexler was strongly influenced by ideas on
Limits to Growth in the early 1970s. His response in his first year at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology was to seek out someone who was working on extraterrestrial resources. He found
Gerard K. O'Neill of
Princeton University, a physicist famous for a strong focus on
particle accelerators and his landmark work on the concepts of
space colonization.
Drexler participated in NASA summer studies on space colonies in 1975
and 1976. He fabricated metal films a few tens of nanometers thick on a
wax support to demonstrate the potentials of high performance
solar sails. He was active in space politics, helping the
L5 Society defeat the
Moon Treaty in 1980.
Besides working summers for O'Neill building
mass driver
prototypes, Drexler delivered papers at the first three Space
Manufacturing conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were
co-authored with
Keith Henson, and patents were issued on both subjects, vapor phase fabrication and space radiators.
During the late 1970s, Drexler began to develop ideas about
molecular nanotechnology (MNT). In 1979, he encountered
Richard Feynman's provocative 1959 talk
There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. The term "
nano-technology" had been coined by the Tokyo Science University professor
Norio Taniguchi
in 1974 to describe the precision manufacture of materials with
nanometer tolerances, and Drexler unknowingly used a related term in his
1986 book
Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology to describe what later became known as
molecular nanotechnology
(MNT). In that book, he proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler"
which would be able to build a copy of itself and of other items of
arbitrary complexity. He also first published the term "
grey goo"
to describe what might happen if a hypothetical self-replicating
molecular nanotechnology went out of control. He has subsequently tried
to clarify his concerns about out-of-control self-replicators, and make
the case that molecular manufacturing does not require such devices.
[1]
Drexler holds three degrees from
MIT. He received his
B.S. in Interdisciplinary Sciences in 1977 and his
M.S. in 1979 in
Astro/Aerospace Engineering with a Master's thesis titled "Design of a High Performance Solar Sail System." In 1991 he earned a
Ph.D. under the auspices of the
MIT Media Lab[citation needed]
(formally, the Media Arts and Sciences Section, School of Architecture
and Planning). His Ph.D. work was the first doctoral degree on the topic
of molecular nanotechnology and his thesis, "Molecular Machinery and
Manufacturing with Applications to Computation," was published (with
minor editing) as
Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.
Drexler and Christine Peterson, at that time husband and wife, founded the
Foresight Institute
in 1986 with the mission of "Preparing for nanotechnology.” Drexler and
Peterson ended their 21-year marriage in 2002. Drexler is no longer a
member of the Foresight Institute.
In March 2004 Drexler signed scientists' open letter in support of
cryonics.
[2]
In August 2005 Drexler joined Nanorex, a molecular engineering software company based in
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan,
to serve as the company's Chief Technical Advisor. Nanorex's
nanoENGINEER-1 software was reportedly able to simulate a hypothetical
differential gear design in "a snap".
In 2006, Drexler married Rosa Wang, a former investment banker who works with
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public on improving the social capital markets.
Controversy
Drexler's work on nanotechnology was criticized as naive by Nobel Prize winner
Richard Smalley in a 2001
Scientific American
article. Smalley first argued that "fat fingers" made MNT impossible.
He later argued that nanomachines would have to resemble chemical
enzymes more than Drexler's assemblers and could only work in water.
Drexler maintained that both were
straw man
arguments, and in the case of enzymes, wrote that "Prof. Klibanov wrote
in 1994, '... using an enzyme in organic solvents eliminates several
obstacles ...'"
[3]
Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond, but in December
2003, Chemical and Engineering news carried a 4 part debate.
[4] Ray Kurzweil
spends four pages in his book 'The Singularity Is Near' [pp 236–238]
showing that Richard Smalley's arguments are not valid, and disputing
them point by point. Kurzweil ends by stating that Drexler's visions are
practicable and even happening already.
[5] This analysis has subsequently been put in an article online at KurzweilAI.net.
[6]
One of the barriers to achieving molecular nanotechnology is the lack
of an efficient way to create machines on a molecular/atomic scale. One
of Drexler's early ideas was an "
assembler",
a nanomachine that would comprise an arm and a computer that could be
programmed to build more nanomachines. If an assembler could be built,
it might then build a copy of itself, and thus potentially be useful for
efficient mass production of nanomachines. But the lack of a way to
first build an assembler remains the
sine qua non obstacle to achieving this vision.
A second difficulty in reaching molecular nanotechnology is design.
Hand design of a gear or bearing at the level of atoms is a grueling
task. While Drexler,
Ralph Merkle,
and others have created a few designs of simple parts, no comprehensive
design effort for anything approaching the complexity of a
Model T Ford has been attempted.
A third difficulty in achieving molecular technology is separating
successful trials from failures, and elucidating the failure mechanisms
of the failures. Unlike
Darwinian evolution,
which proceeds by random variations in ensembles of organisms combined
with deterministic reproduction/extinction as a selection process to
achieve great complexity after billions of years (a set of mechanisms
that
Richard Dawkins
has referred to as a "blind watchmaker"), deliberate design and
building of nanoscale mechanisms requires a means other than
reproduction/extinction to winnow successes from failures. Such means
are difficult to provide (and presently non-existent) for anything other
than small assemblages of atoms viewable by an
AFM or
STM.
Thus, even in the latest report "A Matter of Size: Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative"
[7] put out by the National Academies Press in December 2006, (roughly twenty years after
Engines of Creation was published) no clear way forward toward molecular nanotechnology is seen, as per the conclusion on page 108 of that report:
Although theoretical calculations can be made today, the eventually
attainable range of chemical reaction cycles, error rates, speed of
operation, and thermodynamic efficiencies of such bottom-up
manufacturing systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Thus,
the eventually attainable perfection and complexity of manufactured
products, while they can be calculated in theory, cannot be predicted
with confidence. Finally, the optimum research paths that might lead to
systems which greatly exceed the thermodynamic efficiencies and other
capabilities of biological systems cannot be reliably predicted at this
time. Research funding that is based on the ability of investigators to
produce experimental demonstrations that link to abstract models and
guide long-term vision is most appropriate to achieve this goal.[7]
In science fiction
Drexler is mentioned in the
science fiction book
The Diamond Age as one of the heroes of a future world where nanotechnology is ubiquitous.
In the science fiction novel
Newton's Wake
by Ken Macleod a 'drexler' is a nanotech assembler of pretty much
anything that can fit in the volume of the particular machine - socks to
starships.
Drexler is also mentioned in the science fiction book
Decipher
by Stel Pavlou, his book is mentioned as one of the starting points of
the nanomachine construction, as well as giving a better understanding
of the way
carbon 60 was to be applied.
James Rollins references Drexler's
Engines of Creation in his novel
Excavation,
using his theory of a molecular machine in two sections as a possible
explanation for the mysterious "Substance Z" in the story.
Drexler gets a mention in the late Dr.
Timothy Leary's
Design for Dying in the "Mutation" section, briefly detailing the 8 Circuit Consciousness model. (pg. 91).
Drexler is mentioned in
Doom Patrol #57.
Works
- Engines of Creation (1986)
- The Canvas of the Night (1990), (ar) Project Solar Sail, ed. Arthur C. Clarke, NAL/Roc (ISBN 0451450027) Science Fiction.
- Unbounding the Future (1991; with Christine Peterson and Gayle Pergamit) (ISBN 0-688-12573-5)
- Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992)
- Sample chapters and a table of contents are available online at e.drexler.com
- Drexler's doctoral thesis, Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation, an earlier version of the text that became Nanosystems, is available online
- Engines of Creation 2.0: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology - Updated and Expanded, K. Eric Drexler, 647 pages, (February 2007)
- Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization, May 7, 2013, ISBN 1610391136
See also
References
Eric Drexler in 2013
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