WOWIO Books | Originally published in 1986, K. Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation laid the theoretical foundation for the modern field of nanotechnology and articulated the amazing possibilities and dangers associated with engineering at the molecular scale.
Unique for both its style and substance, the book is today recognized as the seminal work…
Originally published in Engines of Creation 2.0, WOWIO Books, February 2007.
Engines of Creation in 1986 inspired an explosion of interest in nanotechnology. Version 2.0 updates this classic book, including new concepts for molecular manufacturing and new uses for nanotech, such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and compressing it to liquid density for long-term storage.
The vision I portrayed in Engines of Creation in 1986 inspired a generation of students to direct their careers toward nanotechnology. Perhaps because it explores consequences of physics and broad principles, rather than tracking then-current technologies and trends, Engines continues to sell briskly as a book on the future of technology.
It would be difficult to understand where nanotechnology is today without understanding how we got here. Today’s pattern of research and opinion bears the imprint of ideas in Engines of Creation, in part directly, but in large part through reactions, misconceptions, reactions to misconceptions, and the peculiar dance of politics, technologies, and funding that followed. I’d like to offer a sketch of this process as it looked from my perspective, then a brief view looking forward.…
Originally published in Engines of Creation 2.0, WOWIO Books, February 2007.
Development of the ability to design protein molecules will open a path to the fabrication of devices to complex atomic specifications, thus sidestepping obstacles facing conventional microtechnology. This path will involve construction of molecular machinery able to position reactive groups…
Originally published in Engines of Creation 2.0, WOWIO Books, February 2007.
It makes no practical sense to try to build a molecular assembler today. But we can build enabling technologies today, including protein engineering, general macromolecular engineering, and micromanipulation techniques, which will make it easier to build assemblers tomorrow. So, students preparing for a career in nanotech are advised to learn the fundamentals of molecular science and technology.
Many students have asked what they should study to prepare for careers in nanotechnology. Giving a decent answer requires outlining the different fields of research that fall under the nanotechnology umbrella and describing the background knowledge required to work in them. It also seems wise to say something about the different levels of knowledge and modes of learning that are relevant to such a broad, interdisciplinary area. The following is a personal view, based on what I have learned (and wished I had learned), and on how learning in these areas seems to work best. One can’t master everything relevant to so broad a field.…
The ten years since Engines of Creation was first published have brought us far along the path to the development of molecular nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing. Advances have been faster than I had expected.
The basic concepts have also been more controversial than I had expected. Even now, after (for example) the U.S. Science Advisor has called for the development of molecular manufacturing, segments of the science establishment are still having difficulties with some quite simple ideas.
It seems obvious that gaining thorough control of matter at the molecular level will enable major technological advances, and our progress toward this ability is likewise obvious. The molecular machinery found in nature provides an existence proof for enormous capabilities. Research advances in building such machines are reported in journals every week. Perhaps the short time horizons common in US and European science provide the excuse for neglecting the consequences of what we already know to be possible.…
K. Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation is an enormously original book about the consequences of new technologies. It is ambitious and imaginative and, best of all, the thinking is technically sound
But how can anyone predict where science and technology will take us? Although many scientists and technologists have tried…
Think of the design process as involving first the generation of alternatives and then the testing of these alternatives against a whole array of requirements and constraints.
HERBERT A. SIMON
MOLECULAR ASSEMBLERS will bring a revolution without parallel since the development of ribosomes, the primitive assemblers in the cell. The resulting nanotechnologycan help life spread beyond Earth – a step without parallel since life spread beyond the seas. It can help mind emerge in machines – a step without parallel since mind emerged in primates. And it can let our minds renew and remake our bodies – a step without any parallel at all.
The ideas in this book have been shaped by many minds. All authors bear an incalculable debt to earlier writers and thinkers, and the Notes and References section provides a partial acknowledgment of my debt. But other people have had a more immediate influence by reading and criticizing all or part of the several papers, articles, and draft manuscripts ancestral to the present version of this book. Their contributions have ranged from brief letters to extensive, detailed criticisms, suggestions, and revisions; they deserve much of the credit for the evolution of the manuscript toward its present form and content. I do, however, claim all blame for its remaining failings.
IN THE FIELDS I have described, the pace of events is swift. Within the last month or so, a number of developments have occurred or come to my attention:
Several groups are now working on protein design, and the newly founded Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology plans to support such efforts. A group at the National Bureau of Standards has combined two molecular-simulation techniques in a way crucial to designing assemblers. Advances have also been made in the use of computers to plan molecular synthesis.