Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life
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Having had the chance to delve... into our copy, we find it refreshing to see a book about nanotechnology that is a) readable, b) covers all the issues, c) understandable to the layman and d) written by someone who knows what they are talking about. We can't think of another example that punches all of these buttons. (TNTlog )
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Enthusiasts look forward to a time when tiny machines reassemble matter and process information with unparalleled power and precision. But is their vision realistic? Where is the science heading? As nanotechnology (a new technology that many believe will transform society in the next one hundred years) rises higher in the news agenda and popular consciousness, there is a real need for a book which discusses clearly the science on which this technology will be based. Whilst it is most easy to simply imagine these tiny machines as scaled-down versions of the macroscopic machines we are all familiar with, the way things behave on small scales is quite different to the way they behave on large scales. Engineering on the nanoscale will use very different principles to those we are used to in our everyday lives, and the materials used in nanotehnology will be soft and mutable, rather than hard and unyielding. "Soft Machines" explains in a lively and very accessible manner why the nanoworld is so different to the macro-world which we are all familiar with. Why does nature engineer things in the way it does, and how can we learn to use these unfamiliar principles to create valuable new materials and artefacts which will have a profound effect on medicine, electronics, energy and the environment in the twenty-first century. With a firmer understanding of the likely relationship between nanotechnology and nature itself, we can gain a much clearer notion of what dangers this powerful technology may potentially pose, as well as come to realise that nanotechnology will have more in common with biology than with conventional engineering.
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First Sentence
Some people think that nanotechnology will transform the world. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Some people think that nanotechnology will transform the world. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A balanced perspective on nanotechnology,
By
This review is from: Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life (Paperback)
In the 1980s K. Eric Drexler wrote his famous book on nanotechnology 'Engines of Creation' and created a storm of interest in highly advanced diamond based nanomachines, a view of nanotechnology which has been ingrained in the public subconscious ever since. However, speak to any modern day nanoscientist and they will tell you that his work is highly speculative and contains a number of serious holes. Many would be even more dismissive.
In this book, Professor Richard Jones presents a more balanced perspective on the issue. He starts by saying that he does believe advanced tiny machine based nanotechnologies are possible, but that Drexler - with his dry, hard system - is barking up the wrong tree. Here Jones makes the case for, as the title suggests, soft machines, based to some extent on nature, or rather, the principles that nature operates on. The fact is - and one of the reasons there is such an interest in nanoscience - that things work differently when they are small, and we should bare this in mind when making small things, rather than just trying to shrink our 'big world' machines down. Nature is of course the one working example of nanorobots, and it does not work based on scaled down mechanical / electrical engineering principles, but by exploiting physics of the nanoscale - Brownian motion, quantum effects, diffusion, etc, and it can do remarkable things by doing so. Jones's views are grounded in modern scientific understanding, but unlike many, he has actually tried to address the Drexler view and say why he is sceptical rather than just dismissing it out of hand or ignoring the issue entirely. If you're a little confused over this dichotomy of views - the optimistic Kurzweil / Drexlerites on one side, and the nay-saying scientists on the other, then this is an ideal book for you. If fact I would recommend this book to both of the above two groups as well. Think that nanorobots are an idiot's fantasy? Read this book. Think that tiny hard nanobots will be living inside us by 2025, and might even escape and eat the whole planet? Read this book. In summary, if you are interested in reading a balance perspective on the possibility of advanced nanotechnologies, then I recommend this book.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A good introduction,
By
This review is from: Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life (Paperback)
The book wasn't quite what I was looking for - but I still found it of interest. It's aimed more at the the type of person that has an interest in biology, and the potential for therapeutic application of nanotechnology. However, I felt that it missed out on a number of key points - I would suggest combining this book with the work by Drexler for a better understanding of the subject.
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4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
plenty of room at the bottom, but it's sticky and shaky,
By William Uspal - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life (Hardcover)
What is nanotechnology? Much of what has fallen under that label has been incremental extension of established engineering practices and technologies to the nanoscale, e.g. improvements in planar silicon fabrication. How much longer can this continue? A more radical vision is that of K. Eric Drexler and his followers, who foresee precise positional control and construction of "assemblers" and "nanofactories" based on the chemistry of carbon. Is this vision -- which spawned much speculative literature and the grey goo scenario of out of control replicators -- feasible?
Jones argues that a wholly different approach will have to be adopted -- an approach suited to the peculiar physics of the nanoscale, where fluctuations and Brownian motion dominate, where surfaces are sticky, and where even quantum field theory (in the Casimir effect) conspires to frustrate the Drexlerian machinist. Rather than try to work around the physics of the nanoscale, Jones proposes that we use it to our advantage -- just as biological soft "nanotechnology" does. Brownian motion and adhesion energy, for instance, make self-assembly possible. Just as proteins spontaneously fold to their native conformations and just as lipid membranes spontaneously assemble and fold into liposomes, we can design molecules to spontaneously achieve useful three dimensional conformations. We can imitate proteins by coupling conformational changes to molecular recognition and environmental changes, the principle which makes a host of protein activities -- signaling, sensing, catalysis -- possible. While traditional Carnot heat engines fail on the nanoscale, we are now beginning to understand the principles of isothermal molecular motors, such as those used for intracellular transport. I very much recommend this book for its synoptic overview of current nanotechnology and the challenges facing it. Explanations of physical principles are clear and precise, and would benefit the layman and the researcher alike. Jones has much else to say about evolution, systems biology, silicon vs. single molecule electronics, etc. I only regret that he only cursorily discusses bionanotechnology (as opposed to biomimetic synthetic nanotechnology), i.e. what he calls the "Mad Max" approach of stripping down and reengineering working biological nanosystems, which he only introduces in the last chapter. He rightly is concerned about public opposition and even unforeseen consequences of this approach, but I would like to know more about what it has made possible. Still, I very much recommend this underappreciated book (no reviews yet?) which I think is on par with Purcell's paper "Life at Low Reynolds Number" and Vogel's "Life's Devices" -- a science writing gem. 4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Supurb analysis of nanotec possibilities AND limitations,
By Earle Bowers - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life (Paperback)
Before reading this book I was familiar with the conjecture that MNT (molecular nano-technology)devices will tend to be more like nonascale biological components than macroscale machines and suspected there was some truth to it. This book tends to confirm that hypothesis but gives so much more and in such readable detail.
An advantage is that the author, Jones, is not a biologist but a physist, and his approack deals with the physical phenomina of brownian motion (shaking by thermally excited molicules), surface effects like van der Walls forces and viscosity, and the ways these forces can be taken advantage of rather than fought by unconventional machine components like shape changing molicules for valves and isothermal motors at this scale. Jones and colleagues are themselves involved with development of nanoscale motors using these techniques and the book also covers the equally weird information processing and transduction devices which are likely to be most useful at this size range, again emphysizing similarities to biocomponents but by no means suggesting that we limit ourselves to slavishly using or copying them. Later in the book he does get into the physical limitations of the dimonoid assemblers and such originally proposed by Eric Drexler, but this book is by no means simply a put down of another researcher's ideas or cat fight between them. As a view of what short and medium term MNT is likely to be like I can not think of a better source. While this text uses little mathematics it does manage to rigorously lay out the underlying physical laws that will limit some types of construction at this size range but also provide some new and almost magic seeming possibilities. Over-all I would say this book contains les "hype" about nanotechnology than any I have come across, presenting facts instead.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fresh Book,
By Luis F. Recio Alonzo "Amateur enthusiastic" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Soft Machines: Nanotechnology and Life (Paperback)
This book provides a refreshing view of Nanotechnology. I recommend it to anyone that wants to read about Nanotech, as one of the first "must read" in the subject. Well explained, it is really going to take you on a nice journey to that fascinating small world.
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