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- Suggests that in not too many decades we should be able to build
products with almost every atom in the right place, inexpensively, and
consistent with physical law
- Two main issues in nanotechnology:
- What will molecular manufacturing systems look like?
- What can we build today?
- Emphasizes the importance of the carbon structure of diamond for
nanoscale devices
- One application of nanomachines would be in cancer therapy
- Proposes a molecular robotic arm to manipulate individual molecules
- Hydrogen abstraction tool
- Dimer deposition tool
- Hydrogen deposition tool
- Carbene insertion tool
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2
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- Looks to biology for examples of existing nanoscale machines and
self-assembly
- Ribosomal RNA
- Chloroplasts
- Mitochondrion
- Flagellar motors
- Emphasizes the difficulty of constructing nanoscale machines with a
molecular assembler
- Friction and sticking (or “stiction”)
- Power source
- Pincers or jaws must be smaller than the atoms to be manipulated
- Carbon atoms bond strongly to their neighbors
- It would be an incredible feat to outdesign evolution
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3
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- With time, anything may be possible
- Modeling after nature may be faster
- Whitesides’ ideas seem a lot more practical given our current
limitations
- Merkle’s ideas seem to require imagination and forward thinking
- Current experiments suggest that at least some of both of the scientists’
conceptions deserve consideration
- Until nanoscale structures become economically viable, not as much time
and money will be spent on research
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