Nanotechnology: Immortality or total annihilation? .
Technology has evolved from ideals once seen as unbelievable to common everyday instruments. .
Computers that used to occupy an entire room are now the size of notebooks. The human race has always .
pushed for technological advances working at the most efficient level, perhaps, the molecular level. The .
developments and progress in artificial intelligence and molecular technology have spawned a new form .
of technology; Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology could give the human race eternal life, or it could cause .
total annihilation. .
The idea of nanotech was conceived by a man named K. Eric Drexler (Stix 94), which he defines .
as "Technology based on the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules to build structures to .
complex atomic specifications (Drexler, "Engines" 288)." The technology, which Drexler speaks of, will be .
undoubtedly small; in fact, nano- structures will only measure 100 nanometers, or a billionth of a meter .
(Stix 94). .
Being as small as they are, nanostructures require fine particles that can only be seen with the .
STM, or Scanning Tunneling Microscope (Dowie 4). Moreover the STM allows the scientists to not only .
see things at the molecular level, but it can pick up and move atoms as well (Port 128). Unfortunately the .
one device that is giving nanoscientists something to work with is also one of the many obstacles .
restricting the development of nanotech. The STM has been regarded as too big to ever produce nanotech .
structures (Port 128). Other scientists have stated that the manipulation of atoms, which nanotech relies .
on, ignores atomic reality. Atoms simply don't fit together in ways which nanotech intends to use them .
(Garfinkel 105). The problems plaguing the progress of nanotech has raised many questions among the .
scientific community concerning it's validity. The moving of atoms, the gathering of information, the .
restrictions of the STM, all restrict nanotech progress.