Miniature musings
by the year 2020, factories far smaller than the head of a pin will manufacture everything from microwave ovens to sophisticated pistons. According to an American futurist, K Eric Drexler, the future belongs to the science of molecular design called nanotechnology ( Scientific American , Vol 274, No 4).
Nanotechnology is the manufacture of materials and structures with dimensions that measure up to 100 nanometres (one nanometre is the billionth of a metre). Its definition applies to a range of disciplines, from conventional synthetic chemistry to techniques that manipulate individual atoms with tiny probe elements. In the theory expounded by Drexler, methods employed for fabricating products on a nanoscale could eventually evolve into techniques for making molecular robots. In the course of a few hours, manufacturing systems based on Drexler's nanotechnology could produce anything from a rocket ship to minute disease-fighting submarines that roam the bloodstream. And like biological cells, the robots that populate a nanofactory can even make copies of themselves.
The renowned mathematician John Von Neumann, a pioneer in the field of artificial life, first ruminated about a machine that could make copies of itself. Later, nobel laureate Richard P Feynman talked about the ability to build things by placing each atom in a desired place. Drexler, though, can be credited with bringing wide exposure to this exciting idea. He holds the first doctorate in nanotechnology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( mit) , us, and has written a series of speculative books on the