J. Storrs Hall - Nanofuture: Whats Next For Nanotechnology

J. STORRS HALL, PHD

Chief Scientist of Nanorex, Inc., Fellow of the Molecular Engineering Research Institute

Foreword by K. ERIC DREXLER

for Purser Hewitt, 1905-1986

he projected impact of nanotechnology has been touted as a second industrial revolution. Not third, fourth, or fifth, because despite similar predictions for technologies such as computers and robotics, nothing has as yet eclipsed the first.

The original industrial revolution transformed our way of life. At the level of the individual it doubled average lifespan; at the level of national affairs it made possible truly global civilizations. Will nanotechnology measure up on that scale?

Nanotechnology already encompasses remarkable inventions, and yet more are in the labs and on the computer screens of theorists. How are we to judge whether any set of new inventions, however ingenious, will change the world beyond some small technological niche? Read this book and you will see.

Reaching a solid understanding of new technology-the understanding necessary to judge its effects-is an intellectual adventure. I could not wish you any better guide on such a journey than Josh Hall.

Before the term nanotechnology had reached a tenth of its current popularity, he had already formed the first worldwide Internet discussion group and led the discussion for a decade. He has done research and development in nanotechnology since the early days, with multiple inventions and discoveries to his credit

More important than his scientific credentials, however, is the broad context he brings to his explanations. Reading this book, you will learn not only about nanotechnology, but about all technology and not as a mere collection of gadgets, but as part of the structure of the world. It wasn't just the power of the steam engine that made the industrial revolution; it was the relationship between what it could do and what needed to be done.

At the height of the Roman Empire, Heron of Alexandria used steam to power an engine, yet this remained a mere toy. It launched no revolution. It lay forgotten until the context was right, and then steam power changed the world.

It may be difficult to accept that profound changes in technology can reshape our world, but a sense of historical context can help. Try to imagine the history and concerns of the twentieth century without its great technological advances: antibiotics, automobiles, aircraft, radio, television, motion pictures, electric lights, washing machines and dryers, indoor plumbing, and computers. War and peace, poverty and prosperity, dreams and nightmares-all would be different.

The pace of technological change is accelerating, and nanotechnology will be central to that change over the coming decades. The next few decades may well bring more change in technological capability than the past century. The lessons of past technological revolutions are our best guide as we face the next.

History, properly told, is first and foremost a story. Technological history is a story of human needs and physical possibility. Technological forecasting must tell a similar story of human needs fulfilled within the possibilities set by physical law. To understand the impact of nanotechnology, we must consider what it makes possible, what needs it fulfills, and how necessity and possibility together have shaped our world before.

You'll get the whole story here.

Who among us would not be glad to lift the veil behind which the future lies hidden; to cast a glance at the next advances of our science and at the secrets of its development in future centuries?

he first half of the twentieth century witnessed an explosion of technology that deeply affected the way we live. In 1900, heavier-than-air flying machines were widely believed impossible; in 1950, jets were approaching the speed of sound. In 1900, most people did not have cars, electricity, or indoor plumbing. By 1950, they did. The same fifty years saw substantial parts of the development of antibiotics, radio, television, plastics, nuclear weapons, and the computer. Tractors, harvesters, and similar equipment cut the number of people required to produce a given quantity of food by a factor of ten.

To a great extent, the march of progress continued through the second half of the century. Jet airliners became common, and with the Boeing 747, air freight became economical for some kinds of goods. Televisions, computers, cell phones, and similar gadgetry became ubiquitous. The global communications network along with the construction of enormous freight ships and tankers wrought a world economy more integrated at the turn of the twenty-first century than the national one had been at the turn of the twentieth. Men walked on the Moon.

And yet somehow the grand promise of technology seemed to lose its magic. The footprints on the Moon have lain undisturbed for decades. In the late twentieth century, Western civilization produced an artifact with a volume surpassing the Great Wall of China. It was the Fresh Kills landfill, New York City's garbage dump on southern Staten Island. Automobiles don't go very fast when the roads are jammed full of them. Even the production of food in unheard-of quantities resulted in an epidemic of obesity and heart disease.

The shift in perceptions is complex but has a few main roots. First is simply human nature: the promise of technology in the early twentieth century was largely fulfilled, in the industrialized nations at least. People who are well fed, warm, and not faced with hard physical labor turn their attention elsewhere. We did not have two global wars in the second halfcentury as we did in the first. War has a tendency to focus attention toward the means of victory, and away from undesirable side effects.