"Benford-Biotech" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benford Gregory)

GREGORY BENFORD

BIOTECH AND NANODREAMS

If this century has been dominated by bigness--big bombs, big rockets, big wars,
giant leaps for mankind -- then perhaps the next century will be the territory
of the tiny.

Biotech is already well afoot in our world, the stuff of both science fiction
and stock options. Biology operates on scales of ten to a hundred times a
nanometer (a billionth of a meter). Below that, from a few to ten nanometers,
lie atoms.

Nanotechnology -- a capability now only envisioned, applauded and longed for --
attacks the basic structure of matter at the nanometer scale, tinkering with
atoms on a one-by-one basis. It vastly elaborates the themes chemistry and
biology have wrought on brute mass. More intricate, it can promise much. How
much it can deliver depends upon the details.

It is easy to see that if one is able to replace individual atoms at will, one
can make perfectly pure rods and gears like diamond, five times as stiff as
steel, fifty times stronger. Gears, bearings, drive shafts -- all the roles of
the factory can play out on the stage that for now only enzymes enjoy, inside
our cells.

For now, microgears and micromotors exist about a thousand times larger than
true nanotech. In principle, though, single atoms can serve as gear teeth, with
single bonds between atoms providing the bearing for rotating rods. It's only a
matter of time and will.

Much excitement surrounds the possibility of descending to such scales,
following ideas pioneered by Richard Feynman, in his 1961 essay, "There's Plenty
of Room at the Bottom." Later this view was elaborated and advocated by Eric
Drexler in the 1980s. Now some tentative steps toward the nanometer level are
beginning.

Such control is tempting. Like most bright promises, it is easy to see
possibilities, less simple to see what is probable.

Nanotech borders on biology, a vast field rich in emotional issues and popular
misconceptions. Many people, well versed in 1950s B-movies, believe that
radiation can mutate you into another life form directly, not merely your
descendants -- most probably, indeed, into some giant, ugly, hungry insect.

Not all fiction about nanotech or biotech is like this -- there are good
examples of firm thinking in Greg Bear's Queen of Angels and the anthology
Nanodreams edited by Elton Eliott, and elsewhere.