Difference between revisions of "Mechadense's Wiki about Atomically Precise Manufacturing"

Revision as of 10:14, 4 May 2014

Advanced Atomically precise manufacturing (APM) is a prospective method of production for material goods of all sizes.
The products of this manufacturing method consist out of atomically precise parts. These constituent parts like e.g. bearings gears springs and housing structures have the smallest possible physical size that allows for their functioning. When assembled the systems they create strikingly resemble conventional factory-equipment that one finds at the meter scale but on the meter scale those new kind of clearly non biological products may well be designed to be smooth elastic and seamless a trait only biological matter illustrates today. In contrast to atomic scale biological systems those artificial atomically precise systems do not rely on thermal movement for their function, instead they operate in the machine phase. Out of various reasons diamond and diamond like substances are suitable building materials. All of the parts have their surfaces chemically plugged (passivated). Passivated surfaces do not bind to one another (not covalently to be exact). When they are aligned such that their atomic roughness can't intermesh they slide on each other wear free and superlubricating.

With exploratory engineering it was shown ^[1] that AP products of the targeted type will perform better than most products out of materials known today and due to the decentral (at home / locally) and direct (raw material to product in one step) characteristics of the manufacturing process there is also reason to assume that AP products will be cheap in production. Combined those properties may lead to drastic changes in human civilization over a short period of time giving us an opportunity to rapidly solve yet untacklable global problems but also presenting us to new kinds of dangers.

The technical details about the targeted kind of technology can be found in the book Nanosystems ^[1]. It contains details about math physics and chemistry behind those machines. Among other things there is explained why quantum uncertainty is not really a problem, why thermal movement is a solvable challenge and why knowledge about natural solution phase chemistry is not directly applicable to chemical synthesis in the machine phase (mechanosynthesis).

What this site is for?

This is a place to gather information specifically relevant for the attainment of the capability to manufacture goods out of a vew well chosen set of molecular/atomic building blocks with atomic precision and almost single atomic control. By doing so this site should also show that there is already enough knowledge for targeted development work i.e. that it's already rather clear what we have to do next and which questions are to be asked and that there is just a lack of people working toward that goal today.
Please read the guidelines on the community portal before contributing.
Note: When contributing here please avoid using the term nanotechnology and use more precise and specific terms (APM related terms) instead.
History has led to the fact that "nanotechnology" now (2013) almost exclusively links to non atomically precise technologies.

Today (2014) there is a puzzle of technological fragments. There are fragments of todays technology as well as fragments of future technology. Those fragments of future technology are to a certain degree credible since they are quite well accessible for theoretical investigation. The objective is to find and locate all the ends of the fragments that are located at the beginning of the time-line and to find out what work needs to be done to tie them together with the beginning of the fragments later in the time-line.

Beside attainment of APM other closely related topics are also welcome but are not the main objective of this site. e.g.:

• concise explanations of the already known facts about AP technology AP manufacturing and AP products
  (comprehensible by average technological interested people but not inaccurate)
• discussion of near and far dangers and opportunities.
• high level pre-planning including prospective "near" term products - getting an overview - creating a rough orientation chart
• conveying an intuitive feel for AP machines
• general discussions including general software issues

Why do we need APM?

The prospective products of AP technology are a chance to solve the global problems of human civilization and to preserve and further enrich our world. Further there are some essays about why you should care.

Nonetheless public interest is declining (number of searches; newsgroup activity). Also in wide parts of the world APM is as good as unknow to the general public.

The reason for that development could be:

• The rapid increase of non atomically precise nanotechnology was drawing all attention away. See history.
• A lack of a place where the importance of AP Technology is explained, exciting but not so near motivational examples are given and at the same time grounded technical aspects are shown. (This site here could be such a place.)
  

Incremental pathway

In Appendix II of the book "Radical Abundance" ^[2] it is proposed to go through several levels of APM technology to reach advanced (atomic resolution & diamondoid) APM. These layers will serve as a rough guideline for the structuring of this Wiki. In "Nanosystems" ^[1] technology stages are mentioned beginning with section 16.5.2. (written before the emergence of structural DNA nanotechnology)

The recently developed self assembling structural DNA nanotechnology and similar reliably designable structures might be a good starting point from technology level 0. By introducing robotic (more precisely stereotactic) control one could reach something like a "block resolution robotic technology" technology level I from there in a first step. In a second step one could change to e.g. Pyrite or Silica technology level II as building material to increase structural stiffness, reduce vibration amplitudes and get thus more placing accuracy. And finally in a third step one could switch from fluid phase to vacuum so that carbon and silicon can be assembled technology level III.

This very crude temporal outline is by no means the only possible way to go. There may be shortcuts or other paths.
Note: The definition of atomic precision does not imply single-atomic manipulation. The derived term "APM" also tells nothing about product size. It is thus suitable for todays self assembly and all technology levels beyond 0. Advanced levels of APM though are capable of macromanufacturing of diamondoid structures with atomic resolution.

Note that the behavior of mobile electrons at the nanoscale is not as easily predictable as the behavior of mechanics at the same scale thus there's less exploratory engineering for nanoelectronics than nanomechanics. See non mechanical technology path and brownian technology path.

Direct pathway

Another approach is to skip the outlined technology levels and try to create at least one very simple hydrocarbon robotic mechanosyntesis core from which via exponential assembly a nanofactory can be spawned.

Pathway controversy

On the bottom of the Nanofactory Collaboration page they explicitly state that they try to tread the direct pathway.

They did this in response to this article: E.Drexlers Blog: why diamond synthesis is a bad objective. Where E. Drexler roughly states the following:

• Promotion of the direct pathway to advanced APM systems is falsely attributed to him.
• Actually he always heavily advocated development starting from bio-molecular nanosystems.
• There’s a huge difference between a practical, near-term objective and an attractive but distant aim point.
• Some ideas about diamond synthesis (e.g. that it's a a necessary first step) are impractical research objectives that have received far too much attention and seem absurd to most scientists. At the current stage of research, diamond synthesis is both difficult and unnecessary. It's a particularly difficult test-case for the application of advanced mechanosynthesis to high-performance materials.
• Those ideas spread unproportionlally. Despite the original meaning of the term "mechanosynthesis" which he says is "molecular synthesis directed by mechanical means" it became very much equated to diamond synthesis.
• Mis-conceptional ideas like this have and may continue to impede progress.

How long will it take us to get there?

One should assume that:

• it will take too long to lean back and say "we don't need to solve environmental problems because AP Technology will solve them".
• it will come too fast to lean back and say "we don't need to think about effects of radical economic changes and potential arms races".

The Speed of progress in microcomputer technology shows that system complexity isn't so much of a hurdle. Finding the right steps through the initial path puts the greatest question-mark on the time-spans to expect. Taking a completely arbitrary shot in the blue I'd say from now (2014) it will take somewhere between one and four generations (4G's ~ one long lifetime).

External links

• Foresight Institute: Nanotechnology
• Disquisition 2013 "Nano-solutions for the 21st century: Unleashing the fourth technological revolution"
• Zyvex's definition of APM

Videos

• Video of oxford talk: Eric K. Drexler speaks about his new book "Radical Abundance"
• Fully Printed - Note: Diamondoid nanofactories will look and work differently and won't produce food.
• BBC Horizon Nanoutopia (1995) - Note: The term "nanotechnology" turned out to be to unspecific and the assembler concept is now superseded by the nanofactory concept. The complexity of a nanofactory will be akin to modern day computer chips.

References

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation - by K. Eric Drexler
2. ↑ Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization - by K. Eric Drexler