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Oct. 11, 2005 – I’m sure I wasn’t the only person attending a recent conference in California who saw the irony in Eric Drexler giving the plenary talk in place of the International Society of Optical Engineering’s 2005 Visionary Award winner, Richard Smalley. Unfortunately, Smalley faced travel restrictions because of a cancer treatment he was undergoing. Needing to find a replacement quickly, conference organizers selected Drexler to lead off their nano session.
As most people in the industry are aware, there is a relatively long-standing debate between Drexler and Smalley regarding the vision of molecular manufacturing. Drexler, the founder of the Foresight Institute (now known as the Foresight Nanotech Institute), has based his career on the future of atom-by-atom and molecule-by-molecule assembly. Smalley argues that Drexler’s vision is not technically feasible.
Thus the irony in the speaker substitution. After getting past my initial surprise, though, I realized that Drexler’s selection wasn’t as inappropriate as it appeared, even if done by accident.
Smalley and Drexler are both visionaries and have contributed significantly to the field of nanotechnology. Smalley’s concept of nanotechnology parallels the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s focus on physical properties that occur in materials below 100 nanometers. Drexler believes that this definition is too broad because it covers making nanoscale products and not just nanoscale systems. As an astute colleague noted, this is probably more a fight over research dollars than staying true to Richard Feynman’s ideas.
Smalley won a Nobel Prize for his part in discovering buckminsterfullerenes. Deciding that nanotubes had more application promise than buckyballs, Smalley has been actively driving research in “buckytubes” at Rice University. He is also an entrepreneur, starting Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc., a Texas-based supplier of — what else — carbon nanotubes.
Drexler is most famous for writing “Engines of Creation” (1986), which is widely considered as the “first” book on nanotechnology. With roots in space research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Drexler was also the first, though I’m not sure how many more there have been, to earn a doctorate in molecular nanotechnology. Understanding the potential upside and downside to the technology, Drexler has both purposefully driven research forward and raised cautionary flags.
Both men share a desire to make a positive impact on the world. Foresight has a mission to promote nanotechnologies that may help solve some of the major global challenges such as energy, clean water and human quality of life.
Smalley has taken a more focused approach and actively promotes nanotechnology research for energy solutions. And not just incremental improvements are on his radar: He wants to see a replacement for fossil fuels, preferably driven by nanotechnology.
Lastly, science is about debate. If we believed what other people said, we would still think the world was flat and that the universe revolved around me — oops, I meant the Earth. At the SPIE conference, I gave a talk on nanotechnology applications in the market today. I asked the mostly technical audience if they believed molecular manufacturing would be a reality in the next 20 to 30 years. About half said yes, and half said no. Fortunately, the debate on molecular manufacturing isn’t likely to end any time soon.
Why fortunately? Because this is the kind of debate that gets the blood boiling, the mind spinning and the younger generation inspired. In a world of ever-increasing population, pollution and limited resources, we need dreams to drive research and development. Nanotechnology has captured the imagination of the general public and we would be foolish not to take advantage of the momentum currently behind it.
A similar kind of dream — space travel — took us to the moon and gave us Tang. Revolutionary visions can bring about evolutionary change. In reality, space travel hasn’t been fully realized yet. We are still just orbiting the Earth, and even that is in jeopardy. (The shuttle landed safely the morning I began this column — big sigh of relief.) However, even with the promise not yet achieved, the space program has led to significant commercial advances in many industries like aerospace, automotive, consumer and defense.
I see the same with the pursuit of molecular manufacturing. Who knows if we will ever see a computer being generated from bottom-up assembly? (Side note: The new nanofactory animation film released by Nanorex needs some work if it is really going to inspire.) In the end, does it really matter? The goal is to encourage great minds to achieve great things along the long nano road ahead.