K. Eric Drexler

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Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known for popularizing the potential of (so far) hypothetical molecular nanotechnology.

Drexler was 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. 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.

Dr. Drexler holds 4 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 2 PhD's, one in Architecture, and the other from the MIT Media Lab. His 1991 PhD under the auspices of the MIT Media Lab 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: Foresight Institute's goal is to guide emerging technologies to improve the human condition. Foresight focuses its efforts upon nanotechnology, the coming ability to build materials and products with atomic precision, and upon systems that will enhance knowledge exchange and critical discussion, thus improving public and private policy decisions."[1] In 2005 the Foresight Institute changed its mission: "Foresight’s new mission is to ensure the beneficial implementation of nanotechnology. Foresight is accomplishing this by providing balanced, accurate and timely information to help society understand and utilize nanotechnology through public policy activities, publications, guidelines, networking events, tutorials, conferences, roadmaps and prizes."[2]

Drexler and Peterson ended their 21-year marriage in 2003.

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.[3][4] Nanorex's nanoENGINEER-1 software was reportedly able to simulate the hypothetical Drexler-Merkle Differential Gear design in "a snap". According to Nanorex's web site, a public domain molecular design program is being released early in 2006.

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. . . " [5]) Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond, but in December 2003, Chemical and Engineering news carried a 4 part debate. [6]

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

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