| Crucial physical and informational technologies
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| . FAQ
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| . An overview of nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing
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| . . The term “nanotechnology” has two very different meanings.
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| . . Molecular manufacturing will use nanomachines to build large products with atomic precision
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| . . Molecular manufacturing will be able to make a wide range of superior products, many with unprecedented abilities
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| . . Molecular manufacturing can be clean, efficient, and inexpensive
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| . . Molecular manufacturing does not require self-replicating machines
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| . . Existing knowledge in science and engineering provides the basis for our current understanding of molecular manufacturing
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| . . Research worldwide is advancing along multiple paths toward molecular manufacturing
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| . . Mechanosynthetic operations on molecules can transfer single atoms
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| . . Physical scaling laws enable small machines to be highly productive
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| . . Molecular mills can perform repetitive assembly steps using simple, efficient mechanisms
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| . . Convergent assembly can quickly build large products from nanoscale parts
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| . . Complete molecular manufacturing systems will have many subsystems, designed to meet many constraints
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| . . Images of the desktop nanofactory are available for use
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| . Molecular machine animations
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| . The mechanical behavior of molecular systems
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| . . Most large molecules made by conventional synthesis are floppy
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| . . Large molecules made by mechanosynthesis can be stiff
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| . . Dynamical simulation illustrates the behavior of a floppy molecule
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| . . Dynamical simulation illustrates the behavior of a stiff molecule
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| . . Dynamical simulation shows a fast-moving ring
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| . . Stiffly supported sliding atoms have a smooth interaction potential
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| . . Softly supported sliding atoms can undergo abrupt transitions in energy
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| . . Molecular bearings
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| . . . Bearings play a crucial role in many sorts of machinery
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| . . . A shaft in a sleeve can form a rotary bearing
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| . . . Symmetric molecular bearings can exhibit low energy barriers that are insensitive to details of the potential energy function
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| . . . Bearings can be stable despite attractive interactions between their surfaces
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| . . . Phonon drag in sleeve bearings can be orders of magnitude smaller than viscous drag in liquids
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| . . . Sleeve bearings have been designed and modeled in atomic detail
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| . . . PDB files can describe molecular structures in atomic detail
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| . Building molecular nanosystems
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| . . Science and engineering, despite their close relationship, differ fundamentally
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| . . Brownian assembly is a powerful technique with substantial difficulties and limitations
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| . . Molecular machine systems are a strategic objective in developing advanced molecular nanosystems
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| . . Selected publications on the engineering of atomically precise structures from biomolecular materials
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| . . . (1981 Drexler) Protein engineering as a path to advanced nanotechnologies
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| . . . (1983 Pabo) Viewing protein design as “inverse folding”
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| . . . (1988 Regan & DeGrado) A first success in de novo protein design
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| . . . (1989 Noren et al.) New building blocks for protein engineering
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| . . . (1990 Hecht et al.) De novo design of a native-like protein
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| . . . (1994 Drexler) Implementation strategies for molecular nanomachines: protein engineering and AFM-based molecular manipulation
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| . . . (1997 Dahiyat & Mayo) De novo protein design using fully automated sequence selection
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| . . . (1997 DeGrado) Commentary: “A banner year for de novo protein design”
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| . . . (1998 Benner et al.) New building blocks for nucleic acid engineering
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| . . . (1998 Seeman) Review of DNA nanotechnology
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| . . . (2002 Seeman) Building nanostructures by emulating biology
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| . . . (2003 Alberti & Mergny) A DNA-based nanomachine
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| . . . (2003 Kuhlman) First design of a protein with a novel backbone topology
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| . . . (2003 Seeman) Structural DNA nanotechnology for nanoelectronics, nanorobotics, and smart materials
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| . . . (2004 Shih et al.) Design and synthesis of a rigid DNA octahedron
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| . Molecular modeling and error sensitivity
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| . . Quantum chemistry can describe motions, including changes in bonding
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| . . Standard molecular mechanics can describe only motions that leave bonding unchanged
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| . . Some potential energy functions accurately describe the geometries of important classes of structures
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| . . Many molecular phenomena are sensitive to energy differences on the order of kT
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| . . Many molecular phenomena are insensitive to energy differences on the order of kT
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| . . The yields of reactions with large driving energies are insensitive to small variations in driving energy
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| . . Mechanically stiff mechanosynthetic systems can reliably block many unwanted reactions
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| . . The geometries of stiff molecular structures are relatively insensitive to details of the potential energy function
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| . . Experimental data can correct modeling errors
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| . Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation
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| . . Nanosystems: what it’s about, how it's used, and where to read more
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| . . Comments on Nanosystems
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| . Computation as a foundation of technology and society
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| . . Selected publications on secure and social computing
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| . . . (2006 Miller) Cooperation that works: concurrency and secure computing
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| . . . (2003 Miller & Shapiro) Rethinking the foundations of secure computing
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| . . . (2003 Miller & Steigler) Computational contract infrastructure for emerging market economies
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| . . . (1991 Drexler) Hypertext publishing and the evolution of knowledge
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| . . . (1988 Miller & Drexler) A computational perspective on comparative ecology
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| . . . (1988 Drexler & Miller) Mechanisms for market-based management of computational resources
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| . . . (1988 Miller & Drexler) Market mechanisms as a framework for open computational systems
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| . Navigating and using this site
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| . . Site map: an outline view including all pages
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| . . How this site is organized and linked
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| . . Search this and related sites
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| . . Using material from this site
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| . Donations
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| . K. Eric Drexler, PhD
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| . . Select recent and upcoming lectures
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| . . Publications and Patents (partial listing)
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| . . Education
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| . . University courses using works by Eric Drexler
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| . . Biography
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