from the man-will-never-fly dept.
David Coutts writes from Australia: "I'm reading "Visions" by Michio Kaku (co-founder of string field theory), the paperback edition published in 1997 by Anchor Books…The purpose of this [post] is to focus briefly on his handling of nanotechnology, which comes under the Quantum Revolution heading. I found his treatment (pages 266 to 273) curiously dismissive… Feynman's famous article is mentioned, but no mention of Engines of Creation or Nanosystems, nor the Foresight Institute. Instead, he agrees with critics who say that "the claims are as breathtaking as their results are meager"… He concludes by saying that "the jury is out", and nanotechnology remains "purely speculative at this point". Has anyone else read the book? If so, what did you think of his treatment of nanotechnology? I would love to see someone from the Foresight Institute refute Mr Kaku paragraph by paragraph. As a layman, I felt that he had already made up his mind and therefore only interviewed those whose minds were similiarly opposed… " Read More for the full post. David Coutts writes "I'm reading "Visions" by Michio Kaku (co-founder of string field theory), the paperback edition published in 1997 by Anchor Books. All in all it's a very enjoyable read. The subtitle of the book is "How Science Will Revolutionise The 21st Century", and has the three broad themes of The Computer Revolution, The Biomolecular Revolution and the Quantum Revolution. His approach, stated up front, has been to interview over 150 scientists from various branches of science over a 10 year period.
Hence, the "visions" of his book have the "important distinction", as Mr Kaku puts it, of representing an "emerging consensus" from people who should know how the 21st century might shape up. The gist is this: his book is more realistic than many previous attempts at prediction. Overall, from a layman's perspective, I would tend to agree. Mr Kaku's feet are firmly on the ground, and his visions deliberately limited to the time brackets 2000 to 2020, 2020 to 2050, and 2050 to 2100. Each time bracket becomes more speculative than the previous one.
The purpose of this email is to focus briefly on his handling of nanotechnology, which comes under the Quantum Revolution heading. I found his treatment (pages 266 to 273) curiously dismissive. Perhaps as a welcome relief to Eric Drexler, his name is not even mentioned once! Feynman's famous article is mentioned, but no mention of Engines of Creation or Nanosystems, nor the Foresight Institute.
Instead, he agrees with critics who say that "the claims are as breathtaking as their results are meager". David E. Jones' point of view (presumably from his article in Nature from 1995)
https://foresight.org/hotnews/archive.html#WhatSay1995 is mentioned but not Ralph Merkle's refutation "Nanocritics"
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/nanocritics.html plus Philip W. Barth (an engineer from Hewlett-Packard) who apparently posted a a message on the web claiming "that nanotechnology was becoming a pseudoscientific political/social sect like any other religious cult".
He finally dismisses the subject by quoting Istvan Csisary-Ronay Jr (an editor of Science Fiction Studies) who says "It seems like nanotechnology has become the magic potion, the magic dust that allows anything to happen with a pseudoscientific explanation."
Mr Kaku expects MEMS to feature from 2000 to 2020, with Gordon Moore (of Moore's Law fame) a significant backer. From 2020 to 2050 he sees MEMS being replaced with "true molecular machines". Mention is made of buckyballs and nanotubes, which could be used (due to their strength & lightness) for a future skyhook. Daniel T Colbert of Rice University in Houston is quoted as having calculated that nontubes can do the job.
Mr Kaku makes says of the micro-devices being built in this period that they are "a far cry from the self replicating micromachines envsioned by the gurus of nanotechnology." I'm not a guru, but I thought there was a significant difference of scale between "micro" and "nano"?
He concludes by saying that "the jury is out", and nanotechnology remains "purely speculative at this point".
Has anyone else read the book? If so, what did you think of his treatment of nanotechnology? I would love to see someone from the Foresight Institute refute Mr Kaku paragraph by paragraph. As a layman, I felt that he had already made up his mind and therefore only interviewed those whose minds were similiarly opposed to this curious new religion, nanotechnology…
He does list all the scientists interviewed in the preface, but it is by no means clear which scientists gave expert opinions on subjects such as nanotechnology, and whether he took views from all camps.
David Coutts"
