X-Message-Number: 32808
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:48:34 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32800 - #32804
References: <>

On 31 Aug 2010 09:00:03 -0000 CryoNet <>
wrote:
> Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2010 07:41:47 -0700
> Subject: "Nano-nonsense: 25 years of charlatanry"
> From: MARK PLUS <>
> 
> As I've suspected, cryonics organizations might have made an error a
> generation ago by identifying revival scenarios too closely to
> certain technological speculations which haven't born fruit:
> 

> 
http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/nano-nonsense-25-years-of-charlatanry/

Bull.

I've spent about the last five years of my life studying this field
nearly full time.

Let me start by saying that if nano is impossible, you are impossible,
because you are made of molecular machines. How do you function if
molecular machines can't function?

Let me also say that the characterization of Drexler's thesis is
either the result of someone being unable to read it or the result of
someone who feels like lying to stir up controversy is fun. I would go
into detail, but simply reading Drexler's book puts the lie to almost
everything the guy says -- he spends chapter after chapter going after
every single counterargument anyone can give against the things
working, everything from figuring out the uncertainty in positioning
operations from thermal noise and quantum effects to determining the
failure rate of machinery from radiation damage. He discusses in
excruciating detail everything from the chemistry needed to put
together such machines to how to model designs.

Heck, the blog poster's opener is even a lie, Drexler doesn't even
"invoke the Schroedinger equation" anywhere that I can remember. I'm
not sure he even prints it in the book, though my copy isn't
nearby. Why? Because pretty early on he notes (correctly) that exact
ab initio models are incapable of yielding much information about
nanomachines because finding solutions to the Schroedinger equation
for mesomolecular systems will always be computationally
intractable. (He then spends a long time discussing what sort of
mathematical models you need to use in order to understand the
behavior of such systems.)

Believe whatever you like, however, including that you yourself don't
exist.

So, why hasn't Nanotechnology borne fruit? Because no one is working
on it. That's a slight exaggeration, of course, there are perhaps a
dozen of us working on it, but there need to be thousands in order to
get anywhere. The average Intel microprocessor has several thousand
engineers working on the design, and that's ignoring all the people
that built all the machines needed to make those engineers
productive. Even a simple MNT device is far more complicated than an
Intel Core 2, but there's just about no one doing the work, so of
course we're not getting anywhere.

Sure, there are lots of people taking money for nanotechnology
research -- materials scientists and synthetic organic chemists got a
huge bonanza in funding by relabeling their existing work
"nanotechnology" -- but the number of people who are directly working
on molecular manufacturing is so small the community could be wiped
out in a good car accident.

I'm hoping to have some positive influence on this in the future,
which is part of why I spend my time on the subject.

Let me close with the following litany: the book ("Nanosystems") is
cheap. You can buy it on Amazon used for a few bucks. If you haven't
read it, you have no basis for an opinion on its contents. Let me
repeat that loudly. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT, YOU HAVE NO BASIS FOR AN
OPINION ON THE CONTENTS. You therefore should not say anything more on
the topic until you have read AND UNDERSTOOD the book. (If you read
the book and can't understand it, you have no basis for an opinion
either.)

If you choose to reply on this, I'll be expecting you to state that
you have both read and understood the book and thus have a personal
basis for an opinion, or that you are withholding judgment until you
have read the book and understood it. Any other statement you make
will be evidence for nothing other than the fact that you are capable
of expressing strong opinions on something you have no personal
knowledge of whatsoever.


Perry
-- 
Perry E. Metzger		

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