Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Nanomachines Gone Wild!
My favorite type of book is high-concept science fiction. I really love BIG IDEAS. A favorite of mine from a few years ago is Bloom by Will McCarthy. The setup here is that a nanomachine plague of unknown origins is self replicating out of control and eating EVERYTHING to make more copies of itself. Early in the novel there is a flashback to people running for the spaceports to get off of Earth as the ground itself is dissolving. Now all the people left alive are eking out an existence in caves in Jupiter's moons as the entire inner Solar System is overrun with hungry nanomachines. Very cool stuff.
But how real is this possibility. Well, it looks like it could happen but this article claims that it shouldn't.
But how real is this possibility. Well, it looks like it could happen but this article claims that it shouldn't.
The authors explain why self-replication, contrary to previous understanding, is unnecessary for building an efficient and effective molecular manufacturing system. Instead of building lots of tiny, complex, free-floating robots to manufacture products, it will be more practical to use simple robot-arms in larger factories, like today%92s assembly lines. A robot-arm pulled from a factory would be as inert as a light bulb pulled from its socket. And the factory as a whole would be no more mobile than a desktop printer, besides requiring a supply of purified raw materials to build anything. Even the process of developing the factories would not make anything remotely like a runaway replicator - the early machines would be tools, unable to operate by themselves.Good for humans in general, but tough break for sci-fi writers.
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