
There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom (1959) - edward
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the_Bottom
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kqr2
Here's a little more info on the nanomotor which Bill McLellan built to win
one of Feynman's prizes:

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3785509.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3785509.stm)

Amazingly he was able to build the motor by hand using tools such as a
sharpened toothpick.

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melling
That's almost 3 decades from concept to industry, or a lifetime for many HN
readers. We always talk about the rapid progress of science. Someone has a new
idea today that won't reach industry until those same readers near retirement.

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mrfusion
Did Feynman have the idea of building small remote control arms and using
those to build smaller remote control arms, and so on, until you could work in
the nano scale? Has anyone ever pursued that idea?

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alpsgolden
The big problem is that as you scale down the relative importance of different
forces change. Surface tension and viscosity become overwhelming strong
compared to any sort of mechanical force. Anything like a gear or propeller is
useless, rather you have to rely on self-generated chemical gradients. No one
has yet developed these forms of motion and power using entirely nanoscale
physical principles.

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abecedarius
Drexler's _Nanosystems_ does have designs and analyses of bearings, gears, and
motors. Surface tension and viscosity are avoided by running in a vacuum-tight
box. (There's some discussion of lower-performance interim systems to work in
solution.)

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carapace
Awhile ago it occurred to me that there will come a moment when anybody who is
working in any sort of manufacturing but who _isn 't_ doing nanotech is, in
effect, just playing with model trains, tinkering with toys. That moment may
have passed already.

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abecedarius
I think you're going to be right, but not yet. Today we can make complex
atomically-precise structures and machines with
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_nanotechnology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_nanotechnology)
but DNA is weak and floppy. There's much left to do to bootstrap to stronger
stiffer systems that are easier to design.

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dragontamer
Relevant IBM Video: A Boy and his Atom.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSCX78-8-q0)

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angersock
A Boy and His Dog is more fun.

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JonnieCache
Here's a video of him giving a version of the talk in 1984, to an audience of
ludicrous californian hippies:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--
c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--c)

I think it might be at the infamous esalen institute.

~~~
hurin
_Because writing is just black atoms on top of white atoms or whatever_

