Nano. The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology. By Ed Regis. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1995. 325 pp.

The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to an argument supported by nanotechnologists. “Nano” is defined as “one billionth” and a nanotechnologist is a person who achieves practical results by means of “a factory at the level of atoms” (page 7). Regis explains how a factory composed of parts measured in billionths of a meter or nanometers would work. "[M]olecules would be stacked on tiny pallets which would move about on tiny tracks. There would be molecular conveyor belts and rollers, vacuum pumps and ball bearings” (7). 

Invented by K. Eric Drexler and developed by Stanford researchers the infant technology will achieve universal peace. The nanotech argument is a conditional: if a thing is merely an arrangement of atoms, then manipulating an arrangement of atoms is the means of creating new things. Drexler states the argument succinctly: “If you have this very general ability to manipulate atoms in complex patterns...well, then you can make essentially anything that's physically possible” (48).

Given that the argument may be valid, it is no wonder that nanotechs are dreaming of manufacturing “so many material goods so cheaply that people would have every physical thing they wanted” (6).

Because the premise is false, the nanotech dreams are only dreams. While it is correct to state that every material thing is an arrangement of atoms, we must drop the term “merely” from the conditional’s antecedent. Rearranging the atoms of a mineral will not cause it to become self-mover just as rearranging the pencils on my desk does not make them staplers. These common observations contradict Regis’ premise that “the properties of a given object...were a function of the arrangement of its atoms and molecules” (5). The nanotech argument presented by Regis is very attractive but unfortunately has no force. 

The hope for universal peace cannot be realized by “a fleet of tiny, invisible robots” which would “do all the world’s work”, eradicate “disease and aging” and “turn dirt into steak”(4, 6) Despite the false antecedent in their conditional, nanotechs have two qualities that are, in my view, necessary for bringing about world peace: enthusiasm and creativity. 

© By Theodore Faulders, May 17, 1995.