

Billions spent on Ordinary Chemistry Was called Nanotechnology - billswift
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/09/eric-drexler-ralph-merkle-or-robert.html

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nextbigfuture
This is from the author, Brian Wang. If you look in the comments you will see
that Locklin replied on my site. He did not address the fact that funding was
not provided but just said that my article was increasing his faith in the US
government for choosing not to fund molecular nanotech. As for my authority, I
do not say believe me because of my background or my certifications. I provide
the logical connections and historical facts which are not dependent upon
authority. As for how much I know about molecular nanotechnology. I have
lectured at the Singularity university twice on the subject but the nature of
the lecture was to provide a review of the latest developments in the field. I
show that I am current what is happening by writing 99% of the articles on the
website nextbigfuture. There are a few hundred articles on nanotechnology and
a few dozen on molecular nanotechnology. I believe that I am qualified as a
scientific journalist who covers advanced technology and proposed advanced
technology. I had the link to Locklin's site until he would not engage in a
reasoned discussion. He did not publish any of my comments on his site and if
you look at his article and discussion thread on his site you will see that
the level of discussion is one of flamewars. Frankly he just annoys me.

As for Smalley. There have been mechanosynthesis experiments which have broken
and made covalent bonds. So anyone who claims there is a scientific flaw in
the concepts of mechanosynthesis needs to address this evidence. Also, Smalley
promised rocking chair carbon nanotubes for transforming the electrical grid.
But tens of millions have been spent there and there has not been one
commercial watt transmitted with carbon nanotubes. I am aware that there is
slow progress but there are huge gaps between what Smalley promised back in
1995 and what has been done. I was also present when Smalley was giving a talk
at one of the Foresight conferences and said that within a year he would be
creating carbon nanotubes so long that they would be spooled onto a spindle.
Meters long. It was about 13 years later that anything approaching that length
was produced and it was done by Windel at Cambridge and only for a few
strands. Of course Smalley died but it was not Rice University.

This is just to show that Smalley (nobel prize winner) and his authority does
not make him immune from being wrong. So neither does any authority claimed by
Locklin. And I do not expect any authority from me to make a case. I expect
facts and logic to make the case.

currently there is a project by Philip Moriarty in the UK to try and prove the
computational chemistry work of Merkle and Freitas. There has been a delay
getting the equipment and the perfectly smooth surface acquired. the equipment
took a little over a year and is there now but as of a conversation with
Merkle and Freitas a few months ago, they indicated that Moriarty indicated
the atomically smooth surface was holding up the main experimentation.

------
wmf
It's an interesting technique to claim that your opponent is worth rebutting
but not worth linking to.

~~~
hga
It is indeed poor form but all you have to do is to follow the first link
which will show you the one in question.

It's sufficiently vile and inaccurate (the guy's a small time Smalley who even
ends his essay with a quote from that liar) that I can see why he refused to
directly link to it. Plus since it's mostly a hand waving attempt to deny
_all_ of what Drexler has been saying, the author is not addressing the essay
so much as pointing out why Drexler's proposition has never been tested (it's
never been funded).

ADDED: On the other hand, I suppose all this is only fitting, given Drexler's
belief back then that rational science policy was possible and his enthusiasm
for mechanisms that would enable this. In the '70s and '80s there were clearly
aspects of human nature he just couldn't wrap his head around.

------
Panoramix
I'm having problems parsing this title.

~~~
hga
How about:

"Billions of Dollars Spent on 'Nanotechnology' Were Really Spent on Ordinary
Chemistry"

------
varjag
The author does not explain why govt-sponsored nanotech research elsewhere
(Russia, China) turned out just as fruitless and the same kind of rebranding
enterprise as in USA.

~~~
hga
A) Have they really tried Drexler style nanotech? I don't _know_ , but I've
simply not heard of any place else trying it (although there's some
interesting stuff being done in Switzerland). Certainly the detractors would
triumph any such failures.

B) China does a lot more cargo cult science than real science, due at least in
part to the incentive structures (look at the many recent HN items on the
subject; it's become a major issue for any practicing scientist). For that
matter, true innovations coming out of Japan are pretty rare due to their
seniority system; e.g. until very recently _every_ native of Japan that won a
Nobel had to leave the country to do his research (which is a form or
permanent self-exile, setting the barrier pretty high...).

This is not to say that all furreniers are incapable of Real Science, just
that it's a lot more rare than one might think. There are reasons US research
universities are rated as the best in the world, with only a few Western ones
(mostly in the U.K.?) giving them competition.

~~~
varjag
I don't know. Stakes are certainly high for canonical Drexler type nanotech.
You'd figure a lot of the governments would've loved to have an edge there, if
it was possible or within short leap from current technological base?

Government taking charge for research certainly worked for the space race.
Among all the countless grants and fellowships in nanotech you'd hope it would
yield at least _something_ resembling the original vision, at this point.

I sort of can relate to your point B, and perhaps it's not even just the Asian
nations.

~~~
hga
Stakes are high, but that doesn't mean the almost always conservative
establishments of countries will treat it _that_ seriously (this is
particularly unlikely in Japan as noted).

The space race was a combination of re-purposing military hardware (at least
for us, only the Saturn boosters didn't start their life as such, I think the
same is essentially true for the Soviets) for short term term political
advantage. We were claiming to be the most technologically advanced system,
yet the Soviets were the first to orbit a satellite (due to internal US
bureaucratic turf fighting) and the first to put a man in orbit. To convince
other countries that our system was the best we had to match and exceed the
Soviet program.

A good counter example is how other countries only got _really_ serious about
atomic weapons after we used two in such a public fashion. Both the general
concept (E = mc^2) and the specific method (fission of heavy isotopes) had
been around for quite some time; it took the prod of war to actually do it.

You'd _hope_ some grant money would go this way, but remember that the
existing chemistry etc. establishments are already entrenched in the system
and good at getting grant money. In the US they had no trouble spending
'nanotech' money for their usual pursuits.

Also don't forget that this paradigm shift is a threat to the way they've
learned to do things. Never underestimate how far powerful people will go when
they are faced with what they view as an existential threat. Look at how
willing Nobelist Smalley was to flatly lie about what Drexler was proposing
and his first choice of a forum, one notorious for not allowing those attacked
to respond, for an example of this.

As for point B, it's not just the Asian nations: I don't know about their
current status, but it was Brazil's scientific establishment that Feynman
viewed up close and personally during an extended visit that prompted him to
formulate the cargo cult science concept. Looking at where Nobelists actually
did their work would be one way of taking a stab at the question.

------
asdaqqp
<http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.brian.l.wang>

The Author is an MBA from Canadian universities!

What authority the author has to talk on this subject he isn't a PhD in
Chemistry, Physics or or Chemical or even Electrical Engineering?

Locklin is an idiot neverthless.

~~~
hga
Given that the topic is legislative machinations about (research) funding and
the diversion of such funding, it would seem to be well within his formal
education on the subjects.

If you look at his list of publications you'll see they probably assume the
science and technology (and he does have a CS undergraduate degree) and focus
on appropriate stuff beyond that.

And all that said, you don't have to be _too_ familiar with the science and
engineering that Drexler has proposed to know when someone is misrepresenting
it as grossly as Locklin. Just like anyone with a basic understanding of
chemistry and Drexler's writings could tell that Smalley's "fat finger _s_ "
(emphasis on plural) was a strawman, since at that time Drexler had never
proposed multiple "fingers" for just the reason Smally pointed out (not enough
room for them to fit; qualification because I don't know anything about the
current DNA approaches that are exciting a lot of people).

------
nextbigfuture
btw - <http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update26/Update26.1.html>

From 1996 part of the claim about making centimeter lenths of carbon nanotubes
within the year and a mention about spooling them. Smalley claimed that the
spooling was just around the corner as well. Carbon nanotubes have a billion
dollars or more per year industry for some time and have had over a billion
spent on R&D. We are now at about 1000 tons per year for total world
production and the common lengths are usually a millimeter or less. Centimeter
lengths are still rare. Nanocomp technologies is one of the main companies
working with longer than millimeter or centimeter lengths and making a few
tons per year of those lengths.

------
jasonkester
HackerNews has ruined my ability to read articles like this.

I got one paragraph in, saw him call somebody an "idiot", and hit the back
button. Comments here have shown that ad hominem attacks are a strong
indicator of a bad argument, so I've been trained to filter them out.

~~~
hga
Well ... one problem we have here is that Drexler style nanotech is something
that attracts a lot of cranks or just people who don't get it (Drexler related
sometime in the '80s or so the need to convince an acquaintance that it is
incapable of transmuting the contents of an ICBM warhead in flight...).

However, you mischaracterize the author: his only use of idiot as a root word
is " _It is idiotic to blame Drexler, Merkle, Freitas when they did not get
the money_ " (plus a repeat of this thesis statement at the end). He's saying
Locklin and company's behavior is idiotic, not that they are idiots, which is
at least to me a very different thing.

He then goes on to state why his thesis is self-evidently true (they've never
got the funding to try out their ideas). I have no trouble with this style of
argument.

~~~
jasonkester
I stand corrected. "Idiotic" appears in that paragraph, but the actual ad-hom
attack is "since he is a flamebaiting troll".

He makes no attempt to refute the person he attacks, and the only point of the
attack seems to be that he's not linking to that person, because he doesn't
like him.

Why bring it up at all? Why not just write your article, refute any arguments
that need refuting, and try to sound like somebody worth listening to?

That sort of tone gets you voted down to -4 here in comments. It gets your
article skipped too.

