How the Grinch Stole Nanotech and More

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 17 Jan 2006 12:00:55 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Michael S. Rozeff at LewRockwell.com - Almost fifty years ago, Richard Feynman offered a vision of the possibilities of nanotech. Why government should not mess with the market forces that would likely turn this into a booming business. [lew]

When Richard Feynman gave a visionary talk in 1959 entitled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," the renowned physicist set out the idea of molecular nanotechnology. He spoke of reducing 24 million book volumes to a cube only 0.02 inches wide. He spoke of atomic-level machines producing other such machines. He spoke of creating molecules atom by atom. None of his visions violated the laws of physics. All were feasible. If big technical problems could be overcome, the practical uses would be phenomenal.

Feynman talked about discovery "just for the fun of it." He talked about "some kind of high school competition." If it took an economic incentive to "excite you to do it," he'd give "$1,000 to the first guy who can" reduce a page by 1/25,000 so that it could be read by an electron microscope. Feynman was sane to think of high school students making breakthroughs. He was sane to think of discovery for the fun of it, coming in first, or a minor prize. Feynman's still big. It's the times that have grown small.

Feynman didn't mention the government...

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