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K. Eric Drexler

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Image:K. Eric Drexler.jpg Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955 in Oakland, California) is an American engineer best known for popularizing the potential of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at MIT was revised and published as the book "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation" (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.


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[edit] Life and work

Drexler was very strongly influenced by ideas on Limits to Growth in the early 1970s. His response in his first year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was to seek out someone who was working on extraterrestrial resources. He found Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill of Princeton University, a physicist famous for strong focusing in particle accelerators and his landmark work on the concepts of space colonization. Besides working summers for O'Neill building mass driver prototypes, he delivered papers at the first three Space Manufacturing conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were co-authored with Keith Henson, and patents were issued on both subjects, vapor phase fabrication and space radiators.

Drexler was involved in NASA summer studies in 1975 and 1976. He fabricated metal films a few tens of nanometers thick on a wax support to demonstrate the potentials of high performance solar sails. He was active in space politics, helping the L5 Society defeat the Moon Treaty in 1980.

During the late 1970s, he developed ideas about molecular nanotechnology (MNT). In 1979, Drexler encountered Richard Feynman's provocative 1959 talk There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. The term nanotechnology was coined by the Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi in 1974 to describe the precision manufacture of materials with nanometer tolerances, and was unknowingly appropriated by Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology to describe what later became known as molecular nanotechnology (MNT). In that book, Drexler first published the term "gray goo" to describe what might happen if a hypothetical self-replicating molecular nanotechnology went out of control.

Drexler holds 3 degrees from MIT. He received his S.B. in Interdisciplinary Sciences in 1977, his S.M. in 1979 in Astro/Aerospace Engineering, and, in 1991, earned a Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab. His 1991 Ph.D., under the auspices of the MIT Media Lab, and supervised by Marvin Minsky, was the first doctoral degree on the topic of molecular nanotechnology and (after some editing) his thesis was published as "Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation" (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.

One of the barriers to achieving molecular nanotechnology is the lack of an efficient way to create machines on a molecular/atomic scale. One of Drexler's early ideas was an "assembler," a nanomachine which would comprise an arm and a computer that could be programmed to build more nanomachines. If an assembler could be built, it might then build a copy of itself, and, thus, be potentially useful for efficient mass production of nanomachines. But the lack of a way to first build an assembler remains the sine qua non obstacle to achieving this vision.

The other difficulty in reaching molecular nanotechnology is design. Hand design of a gear or bearing at the level of atoms is a gruelling task--though Drexler, Merkle and others have created a few designs of simple parts.

Drexler and Christine Peterson, at that time husband and wife, founded the Foresight Institute in 1986 with the mission of "Preparing for nanotechnology.” Drexler and Peterson ended their 21-year marriage in 2002. Drexler is no longer a member of the Foresight Institute.

In August 2005 Drexler joined Nanorex, a molecular engineering software company based in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, to serve as the company's Chief Technical Advisor.[1][2] Nanorex's nanoENGINEER-1 software was reportedly able to simulate a hypothetical differential gear design in "a snap". According to Nanorex's web site, a public domain molecular design program is being released in 2006.

In 2006, Drexler married Rosa Wang, a former investment banker who works with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public on improving the social capital markets.

[edit] Controversy

Drexler's work on nanotechnology was criticized as naive by Nobel Prize winner Richard Smalley in a 2001 Scientific American article. Smalley first argued that "fat fingers" made MNT impossible. He later argued that nanomachines would have to resemble chemical enzymes more than Drexler's assemblers and could only work in water. (Drexler maintained that both were straw man arguments, and in the case of enzymes, Prof. Klibanov wrote in 1994, "...using an enzyme in organic solvents eliminates several obstacles. . . " [3]) Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond, but in December 2003, Chemical and Engineering news carried a 4 part debate. [4]

[edit] Books by Eric Drexler

[edit] Books and articles about Eric Drexler

[edit] Trivia

Drexler appears in the science fiction book The Diamond Age as one of the heroes of the world where nanotechnology is ubiquitous.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

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[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Drexler, Kim Eric
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Drexler, K. Eric; Drexler, Eric
SHORT DESCRIPTION Engineer famous for popularization of molecular nanotechnology
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Oakland, California
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
de:Eric Drexler

fi:K. Eric Drexler fr:Kim Eric Drexler it:Kim Eric Drexler nl:Eric Drexler sv:Eric Drexler

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