Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology

This book provided me with my first FACTUAL survey of this science-fiction-ish area of scientific research. Nanotechnology, as the blurb up above says, is the emerging science of creating self-replicating robots the size of molecules. These tiny robots, if developed, should be able to have an almost unimaginable impact on human civilization. For example, they could be swallowed in the form of a tablet, which might release millions of tiny robots into the body with the aim of attacking cancer cells. They could be set to work transforming, for example, grass clippings into rice by monkeying around with the composition of grass at the atomic level. People are seriously researching scary stuff like this. There is a lot of science fiction out there about this kind of thing, especially dealing with the infamous (and not impossible) "gray goo" scenario, in which nanorobots run amok and accidentally rip the whole planet into undifferentiated submolecular slime. Ed Regis is careful here to present the actual state of the field, and also to give some interesting insights into the curiously cultlike following that has grown up around Eric Drexler.I recommend this book as a dispassionate assessment of what really COULD be one of the biggest technological revolutions since... oh, I don't know... the wheel comes to mind. Or fire. Or the printed word. My only problem with this book is that it's slightly behind the times nowadays. Nanotechnology is even less science fiction today, in 2001, than it was when this book came out. People should understand, while reading this, that IBM, Hewlett Packard, and other corporate behemoths are spending tens of millions of dollars RIGHT NOW to develop nanotechnology. Some of America's top business schools have Nanotechnology Clubs to monitor potentially lucrative developments in this field -- I'm thinking specifically of Wharton, which I know for a fact has such a club, and I've been told that Stanford and Harvard do as well.I don't think it's possible to be too highly aware of this field of study. I recommend buying this book, and talking about it with family and friends. Pass it around, encourage your friends to pick up a copy for themselves. If you are in school, or have children in school, ask your science teacher to try to do a unit on it. Heck, why not form a club. Try anything, it doesn't matter what you do specifically, just try to become informed. Also -- it is easy to find newsgroups and listservs online about nanotechnology. Just go to any search engine and type in "nanotechnology" and "listserv," and you'll find a source of valuable information for yourself.This book is very worth owning. Two thumbs up.

The Book is very interesting. it gives a full overview of Nano's past, present anf future. The subject it self is fascinating; it's like reading a science fiction novel' only it's our future.

A highly entertaining look at the emerging science of nanotechnology and its leading visionary, K. Eric Drexler. The subject matter is fascinating, and Regis tells the story with his usual wit and humor. Well worth reading as a quick primer on the subject; not intended to be a dry technical text on the subject. Much in the spirit of Regis's Great Mambo Chicken; I think this one is actually a better book, but one should probably read Great Mambo Chicken first as an introduction to Regis's work.

You don't have to believe this is the future, but what a read! The first paragraph sucks your breathe out, and you won't remember breathing again after that. For too few hours, you will be engaged in the heroic journey of a small number of men and women who are trying to change our world one atom at a time. Read this book and you will feel like Alice after she got back from the rabbit hole, or Newton after he got whacked with an apple. Your eyes opening onto new worlds, new possibilities, you will be driven with that insatiable desire to create. Like Regis' book "Who Got Einstein's Office", this is popular science writing at its best!

"Nano" charts the lives and work to date of the nanotechnology field's creators. It's a terrific piece of hardcover journalism, and although it focuses on people rather than science, it ends up being a better introduction to the science than K Eric Drexler's two populist works. It's scientifically accurate, cleanly researched (Regis even counted the equations in a technical text) and gives space to detractors as well as advocates. Secondhand sources are followed up and verified. Regis is evidently a believer in this emerging science, but a particularly even-handed one. I read this book as an afterthought long after I'd digested the field's technical literature, and still enjoyed it hugely. Recommended