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Plaything48 · Feb 13, 2004, 01:12 pm

It's not hard to see the great potential of molecular engineering.

Start with cheap consumer goods. Nanotechnology will involve construction without traditional labour. This could dramatically reduce costs associated with manufacturing and make even luxury goods more widely available. Some have gone so far as to suggest that mature nanotechnology would radically alter economies and end the need for taxation.

Then there's the method of this manufacturing. Nanotechnology could allow material products to be reproduced as easily as informational products are today. We can send software from computer to computer today for practically no cost. Assemblers would need only software, atoms, energy and time to create goods. You could therefore simply download software necessary to produce a number of material items.

What about matter and energy? This brings us to nanotechnology's environmental benefits. Today's method of manufacturing is messy because we can't place atoms in a particular place. Instead, we work with many atoms using chemical reactions. This, however, produces byproducts that must be filtered out to get the purest form of the compounds we're looking for. What's filtered out is waste, and is often toxic.

Nanotechnology would be far cleaner. Not only that, we could use existing waste products as matter for things we need and want. Old dumping grounds could become a source of atoms for use in creating valuable products. And as for energy, nanotechnology could allow for such things as highly efficient solar panels, which would make energy cheap and widely available.

A cleaner environment would indirectly improve our health, but nanotechnology could have direct and dramatic medical effects as well. Microscopic robotic surgery could heal people at the molecular level. It could, for example, remove cholesterol from arteries, destroy cancer cells, repair injured tissue and rebuild limbs and organs.

And these are just some of the possible benefits. Others include computers billions of times faster than today's, molecular food synthesis to reduce hunger and the terraforming of other planets. And many of the benefits probably aren't even apparent yet, since the prospect of molecular engineering will allow for things that are inconveivable using the tools and techniques at our disposal today.

However, we can never have the good without the bad, so watch out for a few of the potential dangers of nanotechnology.

Feb 13, 2004, 01:12 pm	#5 (permalink) (top)
Plaything48 Igneous Magma Location: London baby, yeah! Posts: 198	It's not hard to see the great potential of molecular engineering. Start with cheap consumer goods. Nanotechnology will involve construction without traditional labour. This could dramatically reduce costs associated with manufacturing and make even luxury goods more widely available. Some have gone so far as to suggest that mature nanotechnology would radically alter economies and end the need for taxation. Then there's the method of this manufacturing. Nanotechnology could allow material products to be reproduced as easily as informational products are today. We can send software from computer to computer today for practically no cost. Assemblers would need only software, atoms, energy and time to create goods. You could therefore simply download software necessary to produce a number of material items. What about matter and energy? This brings us to nanotechnology's environmental benefits. Today's method of manufacturing is messy because we can't place atoms in a particular place. Instead, we work with many atoms using chemical reactions. This, however, produces byproducts that must be filtered out to get the purest form of the compounds we're looking for. What's filtered out is waste, and is often toxic. Nanotechnology would be far cleaner. Not only that, we could use existing waste products as matter for things we need and want. Old dumping grounds could become a source of atoms for use in creating valuable products. And as for energy, nanotechnology could allow for such things as highly efficient solar panels, which would make energy cheap and widely available. A cleaner environment would indirectly improve our health, but nanotechnology could have direct and dramatic medical effects as well. Microscopic robotic surgery could heal people at the molecular level. It could, for example, remove cholesterol from arteries, destroy cancer cells, repair injured tissue and rebuild limbs and organs. And these are just some of the possible benefits. Others include computers billions of times faster than today's, molecular food synthesis to reduce hunger and the terraforming of other planets. And many of the benefits probably aren't even apparent yet, since the prospect of molecular engineering will allow for things that are inconveivable using the tools and techniques at our disposal today. However, we can never have the good without the bad, so watch out for a few of the potential dangers of nanotechnology. A man has two reasons for doing anything --- a good reason and the real reason. Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular.