Nanotechnology: Basic Science and Emerging Technologies
Nanotechnology: Basic Science and Emerging Technologies
After genetic engineering, nanotechnology may well prove to be the 21st centurys great leap forward in scientific knowledge. The first books in this field were science fiction; now what those books predicted is becoming scientific reality. Nanotechnology provides a basic introduction to the discipline, explaining what it is, and exploring the possibilities for the future.
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Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology
- ISBN13: 9781591022879
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Flying cars, space travel for everyone, the elimination of poverty and hunger, and powerful new tools to combat disease, and even aging. These are some of the amazing predicted developments of nanotechnology, the coming science of designing and building machines at the molecular and atomic levels. Will this new scientific revolution be for better or worse? Some commentators have described utopias; others have prophesied disaster. Find out the likely reality from an expert, Dr. J. Storrs Hall, in
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Review by for Nanotechnology: Basic Science and Emerging Technologies
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An excellent comprehensive introduction. Very good index and usefull references for deeper study. This book will serve as handy general reference.
Review by S. Jackson for Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology
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I can’t give this book more than two stars, and that’s being generous.
Mr. Hall does present some interesting ideas, but unfortunately, his editors have done him a huge disservice. Here are the first three sentences of Stage I, on page 23;
Essentially what we have now–nanoscale science and technology–including the ability to image at the atomic scale with scanning probe microscopes, and a very limited ability to manipulate, that is, by pushing things around with the same scanning probes. A scanning probe is essentially like feeling something with a stick. Because you have a computer behind it, you can touch it in a very close grid of points and produce a picture.
I made it through the first fifty pages, and it didn’t get any better.
I don’t know if Mr. Hall had a final read before publication, or not, but someone should have stopped this book from being published until it was properly edited.
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Review by M. A. Plus for Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology
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I had the feeling I’ve read this book before. And in a way I have, because it recycles much of Eric Drexler’s book, “Engines of Creation,” from nearly 20 years ago, even copying Drexler’s condescending way of explaining basic scientific and technological concepts. It would have made more sense for Hall to publish an updated edition of “Engines” and list himself as a co-author, instead of writing a largely derivative book of his own. He could still have put in a chapter about his “invention” of Utility Fog, yet another example of nanotech vaporware that many of us long-time “Transhumanists” probably won’t live long enough to see. I didn’t feel I got my money’s worth, so borrow it from the library before you decide whether to buy it.
Review by Peter McCluskey for Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology
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This book provides some rather well informed insights into what molecular engineering will be able to do in a few decades. It isn’t as thoughtful as Drexler’s Engines of Creation, but it has many ideas that seem new to this reader who has been reading similar essays for many years, such as a solar energy collector that looks and feels like grass.
The book is somewhat eccentric in it’s choice of what to emphasize, devoting three pages to the history of the steam engine, but describing the efficiency of nanotech batteries in a footnote that is a bit too cryptic to be convincing.
The chapter on economics is better than I expected, but I’m still not satisfied. The prediction that interest rates will be much higher sounds correct for the period in which we transition to widespread use of general purpose assemblers, since investing capital in producing more machines will be very productive. But once the technology is widespread and mature, the value of additional manufacturing will decline rapidly to the point where it ceases to put upward pressure on interest rates.
The chapter on AI is disappointing, implying that the main risks of AI are to the human ego. For some better clues about the risks of AI, see Yudkowsky’s essay on Creating Friendly AI.
Review by Paul Mosier for Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology
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First of all I must say this book is not for the faint of heart or faint of mind. I wouldn’t reccomend someone who hadn’t been educated at a university or at least had interest in nanotechnology. For those who don’t know nanotechnology in the loose usage is just parts that range from 1 to 1000 nanometers in size-essentially many billions of times smaller than the width of a human hair. However, what people in the industry refer to as true nanotechnology is machinery that can operate at a molecular or atomic level. Some aspects of the book get fairly deep into biology, physics and chemistry. For the first half of the book there is a “nanofact” or possible amazing thing that can be done with this technology every other page. The second half gets into the logistics and actual possiblity of nanotechnology.
Not to be terribly critical but it is clear Hall’s PhD is in science and not literature. I didn’t go looking for errors but I did find a few. So if you are looking for a well edited book or mind some of the goofy onomotopia then you probably shouldn’t read this book. Nanofuture is more like a science fiction novel written by an actual scientist than a reference. About halfway through the book I felt like could have really started to curtail. Instead Dr. Hall starts going into more opinated topics such as space living and transhumanism. I say opininated because they are his opinions. While some are warranted, others are just what he feels should happen. This is why scientists don’t run countries.
Hall touts nanotechnology as the next technological revolution and he makes a very good argument for it. Some of the most interesting facts: it would be possible to make an electrostatic engine with billions of smaller nanoengines capable of making the equivalent of a 100,000 horsepower jet engine that could fit in the palm of your hand/an atomically precise building going up for tens of miles/all the information on the internet (approximately 4 billion webpages) could fit into a single grain of sand with nanotechnology.
Hall talks about five stages of nanotechnology which ranges from stage one which are just moving parts at the nanometer level to level five where whole nanofactories can replicate themselves and are completely autonomous. Having completed some college physics I know a few things about the possibility of these quite incredible machines. Everything at least is plausible because on the atomic level there is no waste and these machines will not ever wear, making so many things in transportation almost infinitely more efficient.
The latter part of the book gets into some considerably further off technology such as synthesizing machines and robots. Some of this seems to be almost pointless to put in the book because a large part of it is speculation–especially the robots. More importantly the greatest factor in deciding if and when nanotechnology will come to fruition is politics. Science and progress, for the past several centuries has depended on politics, whether in the church or in the government. According to Hall one billion dollars a year are being allocated to research across the United States. Unfortunately, much of this funding is going to research that is moving rather slow and/or being used for creating small parts for current technology in cpu’s, cell phones, televisions and various other electronics. He intimates that nanotechnology is most likely going to be considerably advanced in the next decade, almost certainly in the next 25 years and definitely in the next century. I have to agree with him about this, but only in the sense that this technology will become more prevalent; quite possibly never ubiquitous as televisions or computers.
Review by James A. Vedda for Nanofuture: What’s Next For Nanotechnology
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For those who are new to nanotechnology, this is a good place to start. But be prepared for a journey through a variety of disciplines that relate to this topic, including physics, engineering, biology, and others. The descriptions and analogies that explain what nanotechnology is, how it would work, and what it would be good for are useful and understandable. Those who are already reasonably familiar with these concepts might find the first half of the book tedious, and should probably look for something more advanced, perhaps addressing particular applications of nanotechnology.
The character of the narrative changes about two-thirds of the way into the book, as Hall shifts to discussions of possible nano-futures and why we should embrace them rather than fear them. At this point, technical explanation gives way to speculation and opinion. There’s nothing wrong with that – it’s always interesting to hear what experienced, forward-looking technologists have to say about their perspective on the future. From my perspective (political scientist specializing in science & tech policy, especially for space), I would have liked to see more about how evolving nanotech can be used to develop capabilities and solutions in the medium term and less about how we’re going to become preternatural transhumans who all own Star Trek-style matter synthesizers.
The artificial intelligence chapter is an interesting intro to AI, but the tie-in to nanotech is almost non-existent, so it seems like a sidebar discussion. Regarding the chapter on space, I would have liked to see this topic far more developed given the author’s obvious interest in it. The role of nanotech in space seems relegated to making better spacesuits and stronger, lighter spaceships – and of course, providing spacefarers with those handy synthesizers than can turn asteroid dust into food. There must be a multitude of other applications: sensor nets, very large-scale life support systems, space agriculture, energy generation and distribution, propulsion, etc. For those who are fond of the “space elevator” and similar concepts, Hall quickly dismisses these as infeasible and proposes his own idea for an immense launch tower (60 miles high, 240 miles long) that seems like it would be even more difficult to construct than the space elevator.
Some readers will prefer the technical exposition of the first part of the book; others, the futurist speculation of the second part. Either way, this is a topic we need to be thinking about, since the future is what we make it.