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National Academies Report on Molecular Manufacturing

The NAS has released its long-awaited report on molecular manufacturing, under the name “Site-Specific Chemistry for Large-Scale Manufacturing”, as the final section of its Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative.

The study committee invited me to speak at a workshop in Washington (February, 2005), where physicists, chemists, and engineers asked broad and probing questions. The report cites my publications, including Nanosystems, a half-dozen times.

In its conclusion, the committee notes that it is difficult to analyze complex systems intended to build intricate, atomically precise, large-scale products, stating that “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”, and that “the eventually attainable perfection and complexity of manufactured products, while they can be calculated in theory, cannot be predicted with confidence.”

To advance research from theoretical models to concrete accomplishments, the committee calls for “defining and focusing on basic experimental steps that are critical to advancing long-term goals” and for funding "experimental demonstrations that link to abstract models and guide long-term vision”.

This report, prepared in response to a congressional request, represents the first open, high-level, science-based evaluation of the concept of molecular manufacturing. Not surprisingly, this first evaluation led to the first recommendation that research be supported. For a decade or more, researchers eager to pursue this work have faced a closed door. That door now seems to be opening.

NAS Review, final chapter [pdf, 200 KB]; Full report [pdf, 4 MB].

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Updated 19 May 2008

Upcoming lectures:

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May 26-30 2008: Lectures and meetings in São Paulo, Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro. Brazil

Recent lectures:

February 25-26 2008: Chapel Hill, NC, UNC.

January 31 to February 3 2008: Kharagpur, India, at IIT Kharagpur for Kshitij 2008 technology symposium.

October 9-13 2007: Washington, DC, SME Conference in conjunction with the Battelle Memorial Institute, “Mapping Roads toward Advanced Nanotechnologies” (Presentation of Technology Roadmap to Productive Nanosystems)

September 11 and 2007: in Hong Kong and New York, both with JP Morgan, “Nanotechnology - the Next Industrial Revolution: are we investing for the right future?”

September 5-9 2007: Dalian China, World Economic Forum New Leaders Forum, discussion leader in “New Frontiers in Nanotechnology”

August 3-4 2007: Mountain View, CA (Googleplex), Science Foo

June 29 - July 4 2007: Banff, Canada, Renaissance Weekend

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Invited speaker, 2007 Unconventional Computation workshop, cosponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Santa Fe Institute, 21–23 March 2007, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Invited speaker, Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium, "Nanomaterials in Biology and Medicine: Promises and Perils", sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, 10–11 April 2007, Washington, DC.

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New:

Interview in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists regarding molecular manufacturing, weapons, security issues, the role of scientists, and what I would say to elementary school students. (Behind a pay wall: a problem for those students.)

New Edition:

Engines of Creation 2.0 (a WOWIO e-book). This 20th anniversary edition combines the original text of Engines of Creation with a collection of background readings and a new Letter from the Author. The publisher is exploring a new business model that makes copyrighted books available for download at no cost.

New on this site:

Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation. Sample chapters, glossary, and extended Table of Contents from the physics-based text on molecular manufacturing.

Now available:

“Molecular manufacturing: perspectives on the ultimate limits of fabrication” [pdf, 2.0 MB] (in Transactions of the Royal Philosophical Society)

2 June 2006

“Nanoscience and nanotechnology...” (my thoughts on the word in the article “nan'o·tech·nol'o·gy n.” in the inaugural issue of Nature Nanotechnology.)

22 June 2006

    Drexler, K.E. (2006) “Nanotechnology Essays: Revolutionizing the Future of Technology” in AAAS EurekAlert! InContext, updated 22 June 2006. (A general introduction to productive nanosystems.)

2 June 2006

 

Now available exclusively on this site:

Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology in html
with links to Japanese, Spanish, French, and Chinese versions.

4 April 2006 Now available or in press:

    Drexler, K.E. (in press) “Toward Integrated Nanosystems: Fundamental Issues in Design and Modeling” in Handbook of Theoretical and Computational Nanotechnology, M. Rieth, W. Schommers, eds. American Scientific Publishers.

    Drexler, K.E. (2006) “Toward Integrated Nanosystems: Fundamental issues in design and modeling” [pdf, 2.2 MB] in Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience 3:1-10.

    Drexler, K.E. (2006) “Nanotechnology” in McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

    Drexler, K.E. (2005) “Productive Nanosystems: the physics of molecular fabrication” [pdf, 0.6 MB] in Physics Education 40:339-346.

    Allis, D.G. and K.E. Drexler (2005) “Design and Analysis of a Molecular Tool for Carbon Transfer in Mechanosynthesis” [pdf, 1.0 MB] J. Comput. Theor. Nanosci 2:45-55.

9 June 2004

A paper in the Institute of Physics (UK) journal, Nanotechnology, addresses safe exponential manufacturing, explaining why self-replication is unnecessary. New illustrations of a desktop nanofactory are now available.

Some items that may be of special interest are the animations of molecular machines and the analysis of friction in atomically precise bearings vs. fluid-immersed systems. The FAQ outlines recent perspectives on nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing, reframing some issues of broad concern.

A paper on secure computing describes ideas that could prove revolutionary.

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Mailing address:

K. Eric Drexler
171 Main St. #289
Los Altos, CA 94022 USA