NANOTECHNOLOGY

IN THIS C&EN EXCLUSIVE "POINT-COUNTERPOINT," TWO OF nanotechnolog's biggest advocates square off on a fundamental question that will dramatically affect the future development of this field. Are "molecular assemblers"—devices capable of positioning atoms and molecules for precisely defined reactions in almost any environment—physically possible? In his landmark 1986 book, "Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology," K. Eric Drexler envisioned a world utterly transformed by such assemblers. They would be able to build anything with absolute precision and no pollution. They would confer something approaching immortality. They would enable the colonization of the solar system. Drexler, who was then a research affiliate with Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, also explored in "Engines of Creation" the potentially devastating negative consequences of such a technology. "Replicating assemblers and thinking machines pose basic threats to people and to life on Earth," he wrote in a chapter titled "Engines of Destruction." Because Drexler sees the development ...

# Nanotechnology research and applications # Materials Science # Supramolecular Self-Assembly in Materials # Surface Chemistry and Catalysis # Chemistry

(2003). "NANOTECHNOLOGY". Chemical & Engineering News. https://doi.org/10.1021/cen-v081n048.p037