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Nanotech: Yay or nay?
Is nanotechnology worth embracing, or should we be cautious? Discuss round one of this week's Dust-Up.
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1.
Salvi (or more likely you editors) makes an embarrassing blunder describing the size scale: "a nanometer is roughly one-hundredth the width of a human hair". Then we learn that a cold virus is 100 nanometers long. Well, gee, I can see a hair, so I guess I ought to be able to see a cold virus then. No wonder I back away when people sneeze.
Of course the correct value should be one hundred-thousandth the width of a hair. Although this cliched use of the width of a hair for comparisons is pretty tiresome.
2. I would love to see you do a debate like this on GMO crops. The public would benefit greatly from it.
3. (continued) From Salvi's introductory essay, my understanding was that the hallmark of nanotech was the manipulation of substances on the molecular level. IE, I imagine that a cord of nanotubes could be built that would be large enough to hold in my hand, but it's still nanotech because the substance was designed and created by coaxing carbon atoms to bond in a certain architecture. Kimbrell seems to envision nanotech as tiny individual molecules unconnected to each other. But I can't tell from Salvi's essay if this image of nanotech is accurate, partly accurate, or wrong.
4. I don't follow what Kimbrell means by "nano particles" versus "larger particles." First of all, as far as I understand a nanomachine is a molecule, not a particle; probably Kimbrell is using the term colloquially rather than scientifically, but it would be best to be more specific in a scientific debate. Still, I don't understand his point. Does he mean that molecular machines will be smaller than most organic molecules? Is that true? (continued)
5. Kimbrell has the right idea. Unlike most opponents to new ideas, who say to have away with the new idea, he just asks that we evaluate the risks before bringing them to market. Additionally, who knows if the problems that are created by nanotechnology will be reversible? Better to be cautious and find out what could go wrong. However, this requires a substantial amount of funding for this type of research from at least a single country, since another country's research could outpace the safety research, and from Kimbrell's article, it seems this is already reality.
6. Both positions are compelling. Continued government investment in nanotech R&D would be tremendously valuable, and pay well in the long run. We also should not count on nanotech enthusiasts to also be the ones who look into the risks: Government should, in parallel, fund efforts to discover and manage those risks. In the long run, that too is an economic investment, that will prevent public backlash from damaging the nanotech industry at an unexpected moment (think about some of the scandals that have hurt genetically modified food, that could have been avoided).
7. We started of training all the RIRO and GIGO Rubbish in Rubbish out or Garbage in Garbage out. It is here to speed up our work. We went along with this. We had Andy Grove telling us the law of doubling the transistors every 18 months. We increase RAM fro 64 to 4GB, flash drives to increase the RAM more making the machines expensive. Okay. The competitions form the Far East etc gave us a stage for cheaper PC etc. But these are not reliable as we would like to have these. Are they really? I thank you Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD P.O.Box 6044 Dar-Es-Salaam Tanzania East Africa
8. Mr. Salvi’s position is compelling. The quality of life in the USA would be considerably lower if the rapid technology evolution in Silicon Valley happened in another country. Because nanotechnology requires fundamental scientific research that could take many years of development before product sales, companies are not funding them. Therefore, government must invest and stimulate this technology development. The US government’s ROI would be profitable companies such as Fairchild, Intel, Applied Materials, Cisco, Sun, Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. that pay taxes and their highly compensated employees who also pay taxes.
9. We can do both. What is essential is a graphically-compelling visual depiction of the situation. Without pictures that describe for a large audience what is going on and what the implications could be, articles will have very limited effect. Consider the lack of understanding with regard to the internet. Most people do not understand what "net neutrality" is. We cannot make informed choices until we understand what 100 megabit speeds mean in terms of services and costs. Explore these revolutionary technologies, remembering how much each picture is worth and how important each reader's education is to our future.
10. Some countries will be less cautious than others. This technology is the threshold of a new dimension for humanity promising many good things. Unfortunately, as with any new technology some humans will abuse or trivialise it regardless of cautionary legislation. That is the real world. We are still clearing up messes left by other technologies like energy from fossil fuels, chemicals in our food, etc. What makes this one any different. Whats the Military implications? Try legislating that away.
Submitted by: Hal
2. I would love to see you do a debate like this on GMO crops. The public would benefit greatly from it.
Submitted by: DMS
3. (continued) From Salvi's introductory essay, my understanding was that the hallmark of nanotech was the manipulation of substances on the molecular level. IE, I imagine that a cord of nanotubes could be built that would be large enough to hold in my hand, but it's still nanotech because the substance was designed and created by coaxing carbon atoms to bond in a certain architecture. Kimbrell seems to envision nanotech as tiny individual molecules unconnected to each other. But I can't tell from Salvi's essay if this image of nanotech is accurate, partly accurate, or wrong.
Submitted by: S.I.
4. I don't follow what Kimbrell means by "nano particles" versus "larger particles." First of all, as far as I understand a nanomachine is a molecule, not a particle; probably Kimbrell is using the term colloquially rather than scientifically, but it would be best to be more specific in a scientific debate. Still, I don't understand his point. Does he mean that molecular machines will be smaller than most organic molecules? Is that true? (continued)
Submitted by: S.I.
5. Kimbrell has the right idea. Unlike most opponents to new ideas, who say to have away with the new idea, he just asks that we evaluate the risks before bringing them to market. Additionally, who knows if the problems that are created by nanotechnology will be reversible? Better to be cautious and find out what could go wrong. However, this requires a substantial amount of funding for this type of research from at least a single country, since another country's research could outpace the safety research, and from Kimbrell's article, it seems this is already reality.
Submitted by: Peter TMD
6. Both positions are compelling. Continued government investment in nanotech R&D would be tremendously valuable, and pay well in the long run. We also should not count on nanotech enthusiasts to also be the ones who look into the risks: Government should, in parallel, fund efforts to discover and manage those risks. In the long run, that too is an economic investment, that will prevent public backlash from damaging the nanotech industry at an unexpected moment (think about some of the scandals that have hurt genetically modified food, that could have been avoided).
Submitted by: Cos
7. We started of training all the RIRO and GIGO Rubbish in Rubbish out or Garbage in Garbage out. It is here to speed up our work. We went along with this. We had Andy Grove telling us the law of doubling the transistors every 18 months. We increase RAM fro 64 to 4GB, flash drives to increase the RAM more making the machines expensive. Okay. The competitions form the Far East etc gave us a stage for cheaper PC etc. But these are not reliable as we would like to have these. Are they really? I thank you Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD P.O.Box 6044 Dar-Es-Salaam Tanzania East Africa
Submitted by: Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD
8. Mr. Salvi’s position is compelling. The quality of life in the USA would be considerably lower if the rapid technology evolution in Silicon Valley happened in another country. Because nanotechnology requires fundamental scientific research that could take many years of development before product sales, companies are not funding them. Therefore, government must invest and stimulate this technology development. The US government’s ROI would be profitable companies such as Fairchild, Intel, Applied Materials, Cisco, Sun, Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. that pay taxes and their highly compensated employees who also pay taxes.
Submitted by: Brian Lim
9. We can do both. What is essential is a graphically-compelling visual depiction of the situation. Without pictures that describe for a large audience what is going on and what the implications could be, articles will have very limited effect. Consider the lack of understanding with regard to the internet. Most people do not understand what "net neutrality" is. We cannot make informed choices until we understand what 100 megabit speeds mean in terms of services and costs. Explore these revolutionary technologies, remembering how much each picture is worth and how important each reader's education is to our future.
Submitted by: Lee Eils, Ph.D.
10. Some countries will be less cautious than others. This technology is the threshold of a new dimension for humanity promising many good things. Unfortunately, as with any new technology some humans will abuse or trivialise it regardless of cautionary legislation. That is the real world. We are still clearing up messes left by other technologies like energy from fossil fuels, chemicals in our food, etc. What makes this one any different. Whats the Military implications? Try legislating that away.
Submitted by: Dave Lacey UK
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