Essays

Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. In its original sense, 'nanotechnology' refers to the projected ability to construct items 'from the bottom up', using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete, high performance products. The word 'nanotechnology' was popularized by K. Eric Drexler in the 1980's while talking about building machines on the scale of molecules, a few nanometers wide—motors, robot arms, and even whole computers, far smaller than a cell. Drexler spent the next ten years describing and analyzing these incredible devices, and responding to accusations of science fiction. Meanwhile, mundane technology was developing the ability to build simple structures on a molecular scale. As nanotechnology became an accepted concept, the meaning of the word shifted to encompass the simpler kinds of nanometer-scale technology. The U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative defines it as anything smaller than 100 nanometers with novel properties.

Based on Nobel Prize (Physics) winner Richard Peynman's vision of miniature factories using nanomachines to build complex products, advanced nanotechnology (sometimes referred to as molecular manufacturing) will make use of position ally-controlled mechanochemistry guided by molecular machine systems. Shortly after this envisioned molecular machinery is created, it will result in a manufacturing revolution, probably causing severe disruption. It also has serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications.

The nanotechnology development can be described in four phases. The first phase was of passive nanostructures where materials were designed to perform one task. The second phase introduces active nanostructures for multitasking; for example, actuators, drug delivery devices, and sensors. The third phase, which we are just entering, will feature nanosystems with thousands of interacting components. A few years after that, the first integrated nanosystems, functioning much like a mammalian cell with hierarchical systems within systems, are expected to be developed. Thus, as work progresses through the four phases of nanotechnology leading up to molecular nanosystems, which will include molecular manufacturing, it will become increasingly obvious that nanotech is 'engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale'.

As used today, the term nanotechnology usually refers to a broad collection of mostly disconnected fields. Essentially, anything sufficiently small and interesting can be called nanotechnology. Much of it is harmless. For the rest, much of the harm is of familiar and limited quality. However, molecular manufacturing or MM is expected to bring unfamiliar risks and new classes of problems. In its advanced "form, Nanotechnology will have significant impact on almost all industries and all areas of society. It will offer better built, longer lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for industry in general.

A key understanding of nanotechnology is that it offers not just better products, but a vastly improved manufacturing process. A computer can make copies of data files—essentially as many copies as you want at little or no cost. It may he only a matter of time until the building of products becomes as cheap as the copying of files. That is why it is sometimes seen as the next industrial revolution'. Like electricity or computers before it, nanotech will offer greatly improved efficiency in almost every facet of life. However, its technology will have dual-use, meaning it will have both commercial uses and military uses—making far more powerful weapons and tools of surveillance. Thus it represents and only wonderful benefits for humanity, but also grave risks.

The power of nanotechnology can be encapsulated in an apparently simple device called a personal nanofactory (PN) that may sit on your desktop. Packed with miniature chemical processors, computing, and robotics, it will produce a wide-range of items quickly, cleanly, and inexpensively, building products directly from blueprints. Thus, nanotechnology will not only allow making many high-quality products at very low cost, but it will allow making new nanofactories at the same low cost and at the same rapid speed. It is due to this unique ability to reproduce its own means of production that nanotech is said to be an 'exponential' technology. it represents a manufacturing system that  will be able to make more manufacturing systems—factories that can  nanofactories—rapidly, cheaply, and cleanly. The means of production will be able to reproduce exponentially, so in just a few weeks a few nanofactories conceivably could become billions. It is a revolutionary, transformative, powerful, and potentially both very dangerous and beneficial technology.

Due to the rapid progress being made in enabling technologies, such As optics, nanolithography, mechanochemistry and 3d prototyping, full- Scale nanotechnology may arrive much sooner than estimated.  And if It does arrive that soon, the work! May not be adequately prepared, and the consequences could be severe. Actually, it is lime lo ask some tough  questions like who will own the technology will it be heavily restricted  or  freely available, will it magnify or decrease the  gap between rich and poor, can its use for destructive purposes he prevented, etc.

Some of the things which future personal nanofactories could possibly produce are lifesaving medical robots, untraceable weapons of mass destruction, and networked computers for everyone in the world, networked cameras that enable governments to watch our every move rapid invention of wondrous products, or weapons development fast enough to destabilize any arms race.

The whole concept of advanced nanotechnology and MM is so complex, unfamiliar, and staggering in its implications, that a few scientists and engineers have flatly declared it to be impossible. The debate is further confused by science-fictional hype and media misconceptions. However, in spite of such criticism, I nanotechnologists are to be believed, the technology will come about offering great potential for benefit to humankind, and also bringing severe dangers While it is appropriate to examine carefully the risks and possible toxicity of nanoparticles and other products of nanoscale technology, the greatest hazards are posed by malicious or unwise use of molecular manufacturing

Viewed with pessimism, MM could appear far too risky to be allowed to develop to anywhere near its full potential. However, a naïve approach to limiting R&D, such as relinquishment, is flawed for at leaste two reasons. First, it will almost certainly be impossible to prevent the development of MM somewhere in the world. China, Japan, and other Asian nations have thriving nanotechnology programs, and the rapid advance of enabling technologies such as biotechnology, MEMS, and scanning-probe microscopy ensures that R&D efforts will be far easier in the near future than they are today. Second, MM will provide benefits that are simply too good to pass up, including environmental repair: clean, cheap, and efficient manufacturing; medical breakthroughs; immensely powerful computers; and easier access to space. So preparing ourselves and the world for this technology acquires urgency.