NOTE: My book reviews would normally be filed under /pmba, since they are generally business books, but this book was very technology oriented so I decided it belongs here. Regular items on /tech will focus on networking and information technologies, but this was too good to pass up.

The basic premise of Nanofuture by J. Storrs Hall (2005) is that nanotechnology has the potential to change everything - everything we think we know about everything in our world. The author did an excellent job of providing a basic understanding of what nanotechnology is, how mature the technology is today and where it is going, and how some of these changes will impact society.

Nanotechnology refers to creating and manipulating matter at the atomic level. Not just miniturizing systems and components that we already have, but creating new structures and systems from the atom up. The book makes an excellent comparison to living cells, which are naturally created nano-sized components and systems that perform incredibly complex tasks extremely fast and very efficiently.

We can’t create machines with that level of precision, yet. The tools and processes do so are being created, and right now we can push atoms around in a very crude manner - much like “pushing peas around a table with a stick from a distance of 10 feet”. The author calls that Stage 1. The next step to better precision will be to get the nanostructures to assemble themselves, and scientists are currently using biological processes like protein-folding and DNA to make this work. This is Stage 2, and the subcomponents that are being built are simple motors and pumps, nothing as sophisticated as a non-bulldozer.

Stage 3 will be achieved when we have nano-machines that can go on to create more nano-machines. Then we will no longer be dependent on using biological processes to create the ‘builders’. But the basic materials that the builders manipulate will still be relatively large and complex molecules. Stage 4 will go a step beyond and use individual atoms as the basic components, building the more complex molecules needed to assemble larger components. Stage 5 seems to be when this process is widely available and atom-by-atom creation and atomicly exact duplicates of just about any physical thing will be possible.

Sounds far-fetched, right? The author lends credibility to the claims by comparing it to the technological advances throughout the course of human history. From simple tools, to mechanization, to computerization, the rate of technological change has continued to increase. The technological advances of the last 50 years easily outpaced the techonology of the previous 50 years, and it’s unlikely that we have somehow reached a “technology plateau” that will keep somehow keep technolgy stalled near our current levels. Everything points to the probability that we will have the pace of technological improvement will continue to increase.

The book then goes into a great deal of detail about how we will get from Stage 2 to Stage 3 and the mechanics and processes involved. It also discusses how when things get that much smaller, they get dramatically faster. Consider moving shipping containers around a shipyard with moving items around your desk - at the smaller scale, you can repeat many more motions with much greater precision. Imagine the same order of magnitude smaller, and it’s understandable how nano-engines will be able to turn a shaft at 48 billion revolutions per minute (rpm). A device with the output of a 100,000 horsepower aircraft engine could fit in the palm of your hand.

And this is where I have the first problem with the book - it doesn’t address how the nano-structures will relate to the world on the human scale. When I hear about such a super-powered engine, I imagine it somehow turning a turbine large enough to push a large volume of air to create the kind of thrust that will propel an airplane. It is still not clear to me how a million nano-shafts can end up turning something that I can see?

The other problem I have is that the book doesn’t go far enough in some of its examples of how nanotechnology will change everyday life. An example is given that rather than toothbrushes with a motor that moves the entire bristled head, it will have tiny motors on each bristle that will polish the teeth as they are ‘brushed’. I understand that they are trying to related nanotech to everyday items, but with nanotech you wouldn’t need toothbrushes anymore - nanobots in a mouth rinse could remove food particles from the surface of your teeth and be spit into the sink (or be rendered harmless as they pass into your stomach). Or the nano-material could be applied to your teeth just once and form a protective layer more slippery than teflon, not allowing food to attach to tooth enamel in the first place.

The author sees a time when everyone has a microwave-sized ‘synthesizer’ in their house, which can create just about anything - food (raw or ‘cooked’), tools, office supplies... but why would you need to do that? If you wanted to attach several pieces of paper together would you synthesize a stapler? Or would auto-binding be a feature of your nano-enhanced paper? I’d rather have paper that automagically binds together with enough pressure, and can pull apart with equivalent pressure; “Post-It”-like technology built into paper, except it won’t be faintly sticky when not-stuck and the stickiness won’t fail over time. The last thing I would want to do is create a stapler to perform the task - a stapler seems like a stone-age solution in a nanotech world.

And with regard to food, why synthesize perfect food when nanobots living in our stomach could continuously create all the nutrients we need based on whatever we eat. I suppose there will always be a desire to create through cooking, so starting with atomically perfect food is a good way to start. The author also goes to the other extreme, claiming that clothing will be translucently thin while providing temperature maintenance and other protective benefits. But if people wish to maintain any sense of modesty, clothing with a bit more structure and thickness will continue to be the norm.

The book briefly describes how the atomic recipies for these synthesizers would come from a Web-like connection, but it doesn’t begin to explore the intellectual property (IP) issues invloved. With IP protections, whoever owns the designs might have an incredible source of wealth. But with synthesizers that can deconstruct just about any item and capture it’s exact design, how do you protect the design? Without a profit motive, where will the designs come from? There will likely be a place for open-source designs, and plenty of room for pirates and knock-offs. There may be a real danger when imperfect designs are synthesized and perform in unexpected ways.

Another thing that wasn’t addressed was the autonomy or control of nanobots and systems. Even if they have the capabilities to act autonomously, they will need to know which other nanobots they should work cooperatively with, and which ones may be hostile or have motives that conflict with their task or mission. I suppose all this communication will be done over massively-meshed wireless networks, but those network are going to eclipse anything we’ve ever seen before. Imagine a network the size of the all the communications networks currently in the world, and that probably will be the communications capacity required to maintain your bathroom. Now imagine the security requirements for these networks...

The book also gives examples of how nanotech will change transportation, space travel and colonization, and medicine and life sciences. Each one will be transformed, with the potential to extend the vitality of a 20-year-old human to a lifespan of 700 to 900 years.

I’ve listened to the book summary three times already, and each time it has triggered the same excited response. Not everything in the book was new to me; I was introduced to many of the ideas and concepts were in Neal Stephenson’s novel “The Diamond Age”. I guess the exitement is that there is a good basis for this technology to be developed, and that it might come to be commonplace in my lifetime. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that a worldwide communciations network like the Internet would have been dismissed as a pipe dream.