Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech From: markv@pixar.com (Mark VandeWettering) Newsgroups: sci.nanotech Subject: Drexler's talk at NASA AMES Message-ID: Date: 19 Apr 91 04:11:12 GMT Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 29 Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu I had the distinct pleasure of attending Eric Drexler's talk at NASA Ames last week. It was most enlightening and enjoyable, and I thought I would mention some of the highlights. The context of his discussion was nanotechnology as applied to parallel computing. By manufacturing "mechanical" computers, he estimated that he could obtain a staggering 10^15 MIPS per cm^3 of matter. To back this up, he had the preliminary results of molecular dynamics calculations. He determined that a sequence of rods with knobs could be used to implement a simple PLA. The length of the rod must be bounded by the "play" in the system: the bond strengths, uncertainty and other factors. He found that you could implement a unit with 16 knobs on it, with an error rate which was on the order of 10^-12 or so. (That may not have been the exact magnitude he said, but it was of that order). Mechanical energy to move these carbon rods are generated from small electrostatic motors. More details were presented, which I am unfortunately unable to reproduce. It did address some of the shortcomings that I had seen, and I was pleased to see some hard "engineering" studies of the problems. By his determination, a typical 10 MIPS workstation could be reproduced within a cubic micron (which would make it much smaller than a single human cell). It would dissapate very little heat, and in general be incredibly non-intrusive. I prefer to think of them as the world's smartest virus. Anyway, perhaps others who attended the talk would like to comment. mark