Eric Drexler: how exploratory engineering will lead to future nanotechnologies

December 5, 2011

Dr. Eric Drexler has begun a new book project, as noted in an hour-long lecture he recently gave to inaugurate the new Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, IEEE Spectrum Nanoclast reports.

Drexler explains a new kind of predictive mechanism for determining where the future of technology — and, in particular, nanotechnology — will take us, based on how the laws of physics determine future engineering. He further outlines the concept of “exploratory engineering,” a hybrid of sorts between science and engineering (in conventional engineering the basic constraint is manufacturing, while in exploratory engineering, it’s valid modeling, he says).