As I understand it, a lot of Eric Drexler’s vision for nanotech has been shot down via the “fat, sticky fingers” argument. Is that just his vision for “assemblers”? Clearly, many aspects of nanotech are viable.
Thanks,
Rob
Most of the arguments I’ve seen between Drexler and his critics end up with the two talking past each other. The critics want to get down to details while Drexler wants to keep things vague and general. The proposed tech he suggested in Engines of Creation has been shown most likely to not work, but he says “maybe not, but there’ll be some other tech that does the same thing”. The critics say “give us details” which, of course, he does not do.
Right now you will find people talking about nanotech, but what they really mean is nanomaterials. IIRC, anything with at least one dimension less than .1 microns is usually considered nanomaterial. I wish people would stop using the word nanotech for this, but it’s a sexier word than nanomaterials.