Nano Future 2030

We need small parts and structures to build anything of consequence in nanotechnology. We can not yet build functional parts that can be assembled into a larger device. So far, we’ve reached the level of a sharpened stick to poke and prod things apart , scan surfaces, or to rearrange atoms on a surface. We need machined parts. We need the ability to manipulate those parts so they can be assembled into useful devices.

Twenty or thirty years from now, many things will be made of diamond because carbon is cheap, light and strong. During these early years, diamond is a great material for the fabrication of complex mechanical parts, but we can’t build them yet because we can’t sculpt, machine or cast these tiny parts. We need a way to create small parts – that is, objects in the range of 10 to 100 nanometers in size.

One speculation path is to consider how they will build these parts 50 years from now. For research, the most efficient method would be to grow them under computer control by beam deposition of carbon atoms into a diamond crystal matrix. Sure, we may find that impossible without additional techniques. As Dr. Drexler has said, if you try to stick carbon atoms onto a diamond surface, you may get graphite instead of diamond because it is easier to form one than the other. Somehow you have to handle that issue and the solution is to try it and then find a solution – if possible.

Also, in the early years, we need to build many devices in a research environment. That means we want to build a small number of parts, assemble them and create a few test items instead of mass production. It would be good to have a fabrication process that gave us the option to build anything on demand. We would use a CAD program, draw up the specs and have the device fabricated inside our nanolab.

The most similar idea is the desktop 3D printer that exists now for the creation of plastic parts from CAD drawings. The plastic is applied in layers to build up a shape. In diamond parts, we would love to apply carbon atoms in layers to build up diamond parts. But the atoms have to become part of the crystal, not just adhere to the surface.

It is obvious that carbon atoms applied to other carbon atoms form diamond under enough pressure and temperature. The question is, can we duplicate that chemical bonding process in a deposition oven.

It seems reasonable that if you slam carbon atoms into a diamond substrate, there might be conditions under which the atom is bonded to the crystal structure and the diamond grows. Perhaps at a certain temperature, and from a certain angle, with a certain kinetic energy, an atom will bond if it hits the crystal plane at a favorable position. Maybe not. But if I had an electron microscope, a diamond substrate, and a source of ionized carbon atoms somewhat like the electron beam of a CRT television, I would rotate the temperature controlled, diamond surface back and forth through a 120 degree angle while the carbon beam applied one, two or many atoms to the surface. And scan the beam over the surface to create all combinations of angle, energy, and temperature. Then scan or evaluate the surface for growth of diamond versus graphite at all locations where the beam hit the surface.

If you find a temperature, an angle, and a kinetic energy where carbon is added to the crystal rather than forming unwanted graphite, you will have a diamond printer tool.

Seems worth the try to me, but the PHD’s who work with this stuff on a daily basis may have a different perspective.

It’s April, 2010 and we are moving forward. I want to point out a reorganization of the site for better access to old posts and to build a network of related posts. I hope it helps.

The other main addition is to place links to all nano device concepts on this site that either originated here or were developed in association with other people.

The nanofactory project, created with Dr. Eric Drexler in 2006, was my first nano concept that received the energy and time to actually reach completion and it led to the creation of this site in the next year or two after that. I want to highlight that project and the smaller ones that have developed after that early work.

You can see the nanofactory animation at

• 300Meg Version
• 100 Meg Version

The nanofactory started with a request for money contributions from the Foresight Institute. I wanted to help, but money was not the best way for me to help at that time. I ask if they needed any graphics work since I am a 3d animator and have the tools. Dr Drexler needed a few things and he and I got to talking about what we could do together to illustrate his ideas around a nanofactory or nano assembler. We thought it might take a week or two.

Nine months later we had a five minute animation of a completely designed nanofactory. Complete only in the sense that it presented untested ideas for how most of the functions might be approached. Dr Drexler had detailed ideas and simulation tested concepts behind the molecular machinery at the front end of the nanofactory where fuel molecules are torn apart and carbon atoms are build up into diamond blocks. Nothing else in the roughly 90% of the factory was specified or designed when we started. For me, this project turned out to be 50% design and 50% animation. We would decide we needed to show this or that function – such as how to move sub-assemblies around from place to place within the factory – and I would try to come up with a reasonable mechanical device to accomplish that function. And then build it and animate it.

Once or twice I remember coming up with something that just did not work and Dr. Drexler would step in and fix it. And then I’d rebuild it and reanimate it. Thankfully, most of my designs worked as illustrations of one design out of many that might solve a problem. I’m particularly proud of the forest of final assembler stages shown in the final stages of the nanofactory animation. You see a forest of tall machines taking diamond blocks from a transport system on the floor and mechanically placing those blocks into the growing wall of a device under construction. All but one machine fades away and you see a, perhaps overly complex mechanism for picking up, orienting, and applying of the blocks to the active surface.

I’m not the best animator in the world, but this nanofactory was much harder to design than it was to animate. Simple mechanical subjects are probably the easiest thing to animate.

Dr Drexler contributed one graphic element to the animation that he created himself after I gave up or after we both agreed we needed something better. The zooming in sequence of the factory’s internal details is his creation and made by him from scratch. The man can handle graphics a lot better than I can do chemistry. Once you go through the small window and see fuel molecules, rotating selector wheels and the moving pyramids that grab the carbon atoms, you are looking at my animation of his detailed chemical concepts of how to manipulate atoms. In that room, I built what he told me to build. Once we moved out of this room where individual atoms are manipulated, we get into my 3d design of the larger factory. Originally we were going to use a different design to assemble the cubes into larger structures. That first concept was to build larger and larger cubes from smaller cubes until you had one big cube(or device).
I pushed for the extruder concept because it seemed better to build a product a layer at a time from one side to the other. Not sure which method is best.

And believe me, I don’t expect to see these thing in a real nanofactory. Maybe something trying to do a similar job, but there will be a hundred ways to do most things inside the factory. This animation was a good way to get across a concept. Dr Drexler said that before a talk, his audience might have 50 different ideas on what “molecular manufacturing” meant. After watching this animation, everybody in the room knew what Dr Drexler meant by the term.

It was worth the nine months.

I was asked if I knew anyone working on brain augmentation. I don’t. We are too early in the development phase of true nanotechnology. You could say that all work and research going on now is part of the foundation of brain augmentation as well as life extension.

We are our brains. You can replace anything else in our body from some other body and we keep going. Replace your brain with a brain from someone else and you don’t even exist anymore.

I’m aware that some people with a different perspective would consider this crazy because they consider the mind and body to be one. They can’t consider the mind apart from the body. I agree that the two are so well integrated that it is hard to consider the mind apart from the body. Tell that to the poor souls trapped in a body they can’t feel or move in hospitals today. The mind goes on, no matter what the body, outside of the skull, is able to contribute.

So, if the brain is the essence of who we are, we only need to keep that brain working in good order to live forever. Of course, we like our bodies and the experience we get from our bodies and we don’t want to be a brain in a box. But don’t get confused about what is important. Once you have the technology to build and repair things at the molecular level, you can build any body you want or keep the one you have in good repair. But if the brain degrades or fails, you die.

So, the brain should be the focus of our efforts to improve our health and life experience. And along the way, we learn how to augment our brains very easily since it’s just another piece of hardware that needs an interface. If we try to understand the entire body and repair it first so as to support the aging brain, we waste time and people.

The sequence of events should run like this:

1) Fully understand the brain at the biological cell level of a pig and a human.
( That should take another 10 to 20 years).

2) Develop brain cell replacement cells made of inorganic materials such as silicon and ceramic, that exactly duplicate the functions of all types of cells in the brain of a pig and a human. (a good 10 years of research after you have a full function nanofactory available in many labs).

3) Test limited cell replacement in pigs and prove the replacement cells are equivalent to the original.

4) Test interface modules to the pig brain to bring in extra memory, audio and video input and internet connections.

5) (Finally we get to Human Brain Augmentation) Test limited cell replacements in human brains to form an interface for extra memory, audio and video input and internet connections. Once you have an interface you can add any function to the brain.

6) Test limited cell replacement in humans to repair brain injury. Prove the additions are equivalent to the original brain material.

7) Test full brain replacement in pigs and prove the repair and replacement of the modules can extend the life of the pig brain indefinitely.

8 ) Test full brain replacement in humans who are dying and willing to take the risk. Show, to the extent possible, that the person is the same as the original.

After this, anyone can have their organic brain replaced slowly over time ( six months) while retaining consciousness and full function and they will then gain potentially eternal life, full download/upload ability to backup their minds to local memory, ability to change bodies to alternative biological versions or to fully inorganic bodies that duplicate the function and appearance of biological bodies. In other words, replace your organic brain with an inorganic version and you gain tremendous value.

Do we retain the soul in such a replacement? I don’t know because I don’t know what a soul is. Provide me with a technical description of the soul and I’ll be happy to incorporate it into the mix.