How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Nanobots
The Disney cartoon “Phineas and Ferb” rules at my house, a house that is, in turn, ruled by my two boys, ages 6 and 7. My sons enjoy the clever jokes and music, while I also enjoy the occasional reference to quantum physics and, in the title sequence, “creating nanobots” listed as one of the many outlandish, physics-defying intellectual tasks Phineas and Ferb can do over the summer.
I smile every time I hear that opening theme song (and I do hear it quite often in my house) because it proves that nanobots still capture the imagination of young and old despite attempts over the past decade by various interests to paint nanotech as simply Chemistry 2.0 with nothing truly amazing in its future.
Nanobots: Those crazy, nonexistent (as yet) little nanosized workers became hopelessly intertwined with my very real life and career about a decade ago.
One reason I first began to blog about nanotechnology back in ’03 was because of my frustration over attempts by the self-appointed — yet equally nonexistent — “nanobusiness” community to marginalize those who believe in the possibility of true, bottom-up advanced nanotechnology. I saw that the reason for this had nothing to do with science and everything to do with politics.
Long story short, the government is more likely to fund nanotech research if they are not distracted by issues such as the potential “downside” of nanotech — for example, letting little things loose in the body and the environment that cannot be controlled. This was about the time Michael Crichton’s nanotech dystopian novel Prey came out and the “nanobusiness” community was worried that this perception of nanotech would have a negative impact on how the public — and potential government regulators — perceive their business.
But they were not happy to simply say that the “out of control nanobot” or “gray goo” scenarios of our nightmares were far-fetched. Even those who believe in the possibilities of advanced nanotechnology never really bought into “gray goo.” No, they went further and mocked and marginalized those who believed that true, bottom-up assembly — the nanotech of popular culture — is possible at all.
They tried to have it both ways, actually — on one hand claiming that the nanotech they were developing had wonderful, game-changing, industry-changing qualities due to its size, yet then turning around and claiming that it was nothing special, really, just chemistry on a smaller scale. In other words, believe our hype, but do not use the same logic to believe the dystopian scenarios.
And, for the most part, the mainstream media went along for the ride. Suddenly, it became fashionable for science and technology writers to proclaim that true advanced nanotechnology was physically impossible.
Well, yeah, but how are we doing on locating Frankenstein’s brain?
Or that DoDo bird.
My grandchildren introduced me to Phineas and Ferb. It’s a cartoon that has a lot that isn’t aimed at children but not in a bad way. Lot’s of geeky goodness in that show.
Tuff Gum!
This proves that nanotech is a fraud. No way there’s 104 days of summer vacation!
It’s over here!
Let’s just hope that Dr. Doofenshmirtz does not learn to build a nano-inator.
I am looking forward to reading your future posts here about nanotech.
Very interesting. I will read your reports from the nanofield.
Scott Locklin, physicist & quant, takes issue with the nanotechnology idea here:
http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/nano-nonsense-25-years-of-charlatanry/
No, the article you link to takes issue with Eric Drexler, not with the idea of nanotechnology. There are other people who are more-involved with developing real nanotech than Drexler. There are other visions, other paths. I’ll highlight them in future columns.
Clarke’s Three Laws are three “laws” of prediction formulated by the British writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke. They are:
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
It seems like a field that still has the potential to create great things in spite of naysayers! I’ll be interested to see what you have to share with us
If Man was meant to fly God would have given him wings. All attempts to develop flying machines are doomed to failure.
Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, famously declared in 1895: “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”
Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson describes a nanotech future in which the world has survived several nanotech virus wars and where computing is done with physical machines not electricity, Babbage style.
Phineas and Ferb totally rock. We’re all adults in my house and we watch it.
And don’t these people realize how many things written in science fiction actually came true? Maybe not exactly as written, but close enough.
In one of the first episodes I watched with my grandchildren (“Out to Launch”), the boys were trying to build a rocket to fly to a star their dad had named after them. They kept trying to derive the rocket equation and getting it slightly wrong, causing the rocket to blow up. My grandkids just looked at me funny as I was laughing out loud. First, having the rocket equation in the cartoon was geeky goodness and making fun of the whole “pay money to name a star after yourself” stupidity was a bonus.
For any geek who hasn’t seen Phineas and Ferb, you can view entire episodes on YouTube.
Better start making air filters that clean nanobots from the ambient air.
Hackers will be spraying them out their planes over cities.
If you think a botnet attack by millions of slave computers is bad, wait until you experience a botnet attack by millionx of zombie humans.
Wouldn’t it be loverly.
We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Existence as you know it is over.
Resistance is futile.
“nanotechnology” is engineers trying to muscle in on chemistry. Your “nano machine” is what we call an Enzyme.
Maybe, but when an enzyme is engineered by scientists for desired effects to produce new pharmaceuticals, fuel or food, is that pure chemistry? Or is that engineering, too? Perhaps both? Or, as it is in nanotechnology, all these disciplines are converging at the nanoscale.
It is kind of a world unseen by the chattering classes. It is going forward by leaps and bounds and the 99% news media sees none of it. I particularly would like to keep up with the Soccer II and the DNA sequences they have uncovered.
For those who haven’t heard the Soccer II was a ship that went to sea a few years ago with DNA sequencing equipment and began to sequence DNA of creatures around the Black Smokers and other exotic regions of the oceans.
I would also like to hear about the protein folding and chemistry design software that is around some of the colleges. Physics software for high school students would be good for my niece and nephews would b go too.
Call me when they actually manage to do something USEFUL.
Targeted drug delivery to treat cancer, smaller and faster computer chips. They seem pretty useful to me.
Phineas and Ferb rule!