[extropy-chat] How The Schmirk Stole Nanotechnology

[Robert J. Bradbury]

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003, Spike wrote:

Quoting me...
-- Actually spike I think my quote/question was on nanodot, not /.
  http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/24/0633205

> I can answer that one: promote it, bigtime.  They will
> promote nanotech to *enhance* current markets. [snip]

Well I'm glad to hear that.

> Note that the nanotech that is being developed at Lockheeed, et.al.
> is not true bottom-up Drexlerian nanotech, but rather
> the next technical steps in miniaturization, top-down.
> They all want to know how we keep going down after
> photolithography gives out, which appears to be soon,
> perhaps in the next 10-15 years.

At least one answer appears to be self-assembly.  The recent
assembly of a nanoscale transistor in Israel and IBM's progress
on self-assembly of micro-domains for data storage plus the
work being promoted by Zettacore suggest that there is going
to be a fair amount of self-assembly being done [also see 1.].
Not the approach I would pick but it seems to be the one that can
be done now using the tools we have available at this time.

Robert

1. For further discussion see my comments in:
 http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/01/021236