Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: sean@aipna.edinburgh.ac.uk (Sean Matthews) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Rendevous with Rama Message-ID: Date: 8 Sep 89 02:14:03 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 21 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu Since this noticeboard deals with technological daydreams, how about considering an extended (and much more realistic - I think) daydream by A.C.Clarke---as opposed to the E.E.Smith style daydreams that feature here usually. How do people feel about the Rama system in `Rendevous with Rama' as an accurate example of a practically expectable nanotechnology. I define practical as: implementable except practical technological problems---the sort that we can expect to solve by grinding away at them a little at a time, as opposed to those that need a eureka step. (e.g., one that does not assume such improbablites as total knowledge of the *all* of human biology, from the molecular to the psychological---like the `we will be able to live for five million years and never suffer frostbite' discussion). Sean P.S. should `nanotec(h)ology' be spelled with or without the `h'? [I assumed you meant "nanotechnology" and corrected the spelling above. --JoSH]