These are recreations of classical photographs with Legos. The funny part about this is that the camera with which the pics were shot is itself built from Legos (barring lenses and a few other select pieces). I have a copy of the book from this exposition, which has a pic of the camera, and some 20+ more Lego pics- a few of the best were left out from the website. I can scan some if anyone is interested.
It would be interesting if there existed a medium somewhere between Lego and molecules, in scale and versatility. A sort of programming language for physical stuff, and one that's usable enough to create Things People Want, or at least prototype them.
I think that one of the problems that will need to be solved before molecular nanotechnology arrives is how to put together (and take apart) units of atoms using very similar atoms as the dis/assembler. So, if it can be done in Legos using a much smaller number of pieces, it can serve as a model for the molecular dis/assembler.
I doubt a lego-scale model would help much, the forces and effects involved at the molecular scale are much different. However, K. Eric Drexler, father of the field of molecular nanotechnology, has done some theoretical work to show that it's feasible in his book "Engines of Creation". A newly revised version of it is available for free as an eBook: http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=503
Hey, a fellow mnt (molecular nanotechnology) enthusiast, cool!
Yes, I've read EoC and Nanosystems (well, I skimmed Nanosystems; it's not a very easy read, being so informationally dense), and follow the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN, http://crnano.typepad.com) blog regularly. As an entrepreneur, I think a startup that comes up with a molecular assembler would be a truly disruptive one, and I'm looking forward to sufficient advances in technology that this is feasible.
