To add to my reply above, one approach for discussion about the specifics of future technology is to take an approach like Nanosystems does: operate within safe limits of known technology and limit concepts to those that are more-or-less guaranteed to work, even if they are probably inefficient. In this way, even though we acknowledge that our designs could not be built today, and future technology will probably choose to build things in an entirely different way, we can still have a rough picture of what’s possible and what isn’t.
It shows an ‘assembly line for molecules’. Of course, there are many questions that are left unanswered. Energy consumption, reconfigurability, throughput. It’s unclear at all if the whole thing would actually be an improvement over current technology. For example, will this nanofactory be able to produce additional nanofactories? If not, it wouldn’t make things any cheaper or more efficient.
However, it does serve as a conceptual starting point. And indeed, small-scale versions of the technology exist right now (people have automated AFMs that are capable of producing atomic structures; people have also used AFMs to modify, break, and form chemical bonds).
To add to my reply above, one approach for discussion about the specifics of future technology is to take an approach like Nanosystems does: operate within safe limits of known technology and limit concepts to those that are more-or-less guaranteed to work, even if they are probably inefficient. In this way, even though we acknowledge that our designs could not be built today, and future technology will probably choose to build things in an entirely different way, we can still have a rough picture of what’s possible and what isn’t.
For example, take this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEYN18d7gHg
It shows an ‘assembly line for molecules’. Of course, there are many questions that are left unanswered. Energy consumption, reconfigurability, throughput. It’s unclear at all if the whole thing would actually be an improvement over current technology. For example, will this nanofactory be able to produce additional nanofactories? If not, it wouldn’t make things any cheaper or more efficient.
However, it does serve as a conceptual starting point. And indeed, small-scale versions of the technology exist right now (people have automated AFMs that are capable of producing atomic structures; people have also used AFMs to modify, break, and form chemical bonds).