One of the first obvious benefits is the improvement in manufacturing techniques. We are taking familiar manufacturing systems and expanding them to develop precision on the atomic scale. This will give us greater understanding of the building of things, and greater flexibility in the types and quantity of things we may build. We will be able to expand our control of systems from the macro to the micro and beyond, while simultaneously reducing the cost associated with manufacturing products.
Some of the most dramatic changes are expected in the realm of medicine. Theorists envision creating machines that will be able to travel through the circulatory system, cleaning the arteries as they go; sending out troops to track down and destroy cancer cells and tumors; or repairing injured tissue at the site of the wound, even to the point of replacing missing limbs or damaged organs. The extent of medical repair systems is expected to be quite broad, with the cumulative impact being equally large. These prospects are described in the Nanomedicine book series.
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Ignoring for the moment that scientists and engineers are a curious lot, always pushing the envelope of what can and cannot be done, precision has been mentioned as a benefit of molecular machines and is one of the keys to understanding why we would want to develop this technology.
In this application, precision means that there is a place for every atom and every atom is in its place. Schematics will be detailed, and there will be no unnecessary parts anywhere in the design. We will use machines of precision to create products of equal precision. With this precision, we should be able to recycle all of the waste products produced by the manufacturing processes and put them to good use elsewhere. Manufacturing will also become less expensive as a result.
Technology has never had this kind of precise control; all of our technologies today are bulk technologies. We take a lump of something and add or remove pieces until we're left with whatever object we were trying to create. We assemble our objects from parts, without regard to structure at the molecular level. Precise atomic-level fabrication has previously only been seen in the growth of crystals or in biological molecular machinery, like the ribosome, which assembles all the proteins in living creatures, or DNA, which carries the instructions for creating a living being. If we incorporate similar processes during our development of nanotechnology, we will begin to gain a degree of complexity and control over systems that previously only evolution and nature have had.
Additional benefits arise when we consider the size of devices that we will be able to create. Once we are working on the atomic scale, we can create machines that will go places about which we could once only dream. More information will be packed into smaller and smaller spaces, and we will be able to do much more with much less. Nanotechnology promises unprecedented and efficient control over our environment, but taking advantage of anticipated developments requires forethought and planning. This is a primary aspect of Foresight's mission, and we continue to explore the costs and the benefits of developing nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing.
Molecular manufacturing is the name given to a specific type of "bottom-up" construction technology. As its name implies, molecular manufacturing will be achieved when we are able to build things from the molecule up, and we will be able to rearrange matter with atomic precision. This technology does not yet exist; but once it does, we should have a thorough and inexpensive system for controlling of the structure of matter.
Other terms, such as molecular engineering or productive molecular nanosystems, are also often applied when describing this emerging technology.
The central thesis of nanotechnology is that almost any chemically stable structure that is not specifically disallowed by the laws of physics can in fact be built. The possibility of building things with atomic precision was first introduced by Richard Feynman in a famous after-dinner talk in 1959 when he said: "The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom."
Scientists have recently gained the ability to observe and manipulate atoms directly, but this is only one small aspect of a growing array of techniques in nanoscale science and technology. The ability to make commercial products may yet be a few decades away. But theoretical and computational models indicate that molecular manufacturing systems are possible - that they do not violate existing physical law. These models also give us a feel for what a molecular manufacturing system might look like. Today, scientists are devising numerous tools and techniques that will be needed to transform nanotechnology from computer models into reality. While most remain in the realm of theory, there appears to be no fundamental barrier to their development.
