Presentation at the International Congress of Nanotechnology
October 31, 2006 – November 2, 2006
Nanotech’s History:
An Interesting, Interdisciplinary, Ideological Split
By Ashley Shew
Graduate Student
Philosophy / Science & Technology Studies
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Contact Information:
Department of Philosophy
229 Major Williams Hall (0126)
Blacksburg, VA 24061
(864)483-0397
ashley.shew@gmail.com
Abstract:
Nanotechnology, a developing, well-funded, and interdisciplinary field of science and
technology, is looked at by those in favor of its development in two very different ways.
The divide in the emerging field of nanotechnology is not a recent development in its
rather short history. This paper aims to describe the origins of the differing visions of
nanotechnology and examine the broader impacts of the type of divide we see in
nanotech. The typical history of this field tells us nothing about these differing visions in
nanotech and perhaps misleads. There are two distinct camps among scientists and
engineers who pursue work on the nanoscale and the vision they have of their work – this
is not a novel observation. But, the two groups rarely interact on any deep level, and,
when they do, they seem to get nowhere. This paper looks first at definitional issues in
the field, then turns to common history of nanotechnology, looking at the history’s
shortcomings and one particular episode in its history that highlights the divide, and then
examines the broader impacts of this dispute. The divide among those interested in
nanotech has something, perhaps, to tell us about the way different groups of people see
technology and the application of science. Controversy over societal issues and
terminology in nanotechnology are made clear by a historical look at nanotechnology.
2
Histories and technologies are made by people. In the way that no single person creates a
technology on his own (other actors are always involved), recording ‘the history’ of
anything is an unrealistic goal. Histories, the plural, are all we can hope to gather.
Different viewpoints, different players, different situations. My project is to record a way
of explaining one facet in the history of nanotechnology. Just as nanotechnology
encompasses many technologies and possibilities, so my history of nanotechnology will
involve many histories. But, I am not an objective observer. I have interacted with my
specimen. Just as the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope warps the surface it is
imaging, unable to ever get an objective viewpoint, I have made contact with the
community of nanotechnology, unable to see things from far away. I am a single atom
(possibly of tungsten or platinum-iridium) of a probe tip, forcing myself on my sample,
nanotechnology. I impact the surface as the surface impacts me.
All historians are biased, but all scientists are too. Let’s not pretend. In our
studies, we become involved, we form theories, we wish for certain results, and we
become absorbed by our subject matter. We can be more objective in comparing our
results and observations. I have tried to be quiet and to listen, so that I might take more
into account. I have questioned at times, toured labs, networked at conferences, been
given no small collection of business cards, and given my opinion when appropriate or
requested. I have presented my ideas about nanotechnology’s development to scientists,
engineers, and philosophers at two conferences. My historical area of study is so close
that it is still happening. The main players are still alive (mostly), discoveries are being
made, applications are being dreamt. But there is still a split within my sample, a divide
that we must probe.
Honesty admits perspective and is my only aim. The nanotechnologists I study, if
they ask, know that I am interested in the historical aspects of nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology is so interesting because it is not one subject of study. Rather, it is a
scale (10-9m) that has brought together researchers, innovators, and engineers from
sometimes radically different fields. Disciplines collide on the tiny. The nanoscale is
smaller than my imagination can handle, and the comparisons given to me by helpful
scientists and engineers are rarely helpful.
3
Nanotechnology is billed as ‘The Next Industrial Revolution,’1 lauded as an
endeavor that will have innumerable applications across many areas, feared for some of
the possible doomsday scenarios that have been suggested, and questioned for the ethics
of some of its applications. But, the field of nanotechnology is divided by more than
those who support the development of nanotechnology and those who do not. The
definition of what nanotechnology embodies is unclear. The editors of the technology and
society journal The New Atlantis have observed the divide between the supporters of the
development of nanotechnology:
The field of nanotechnology is divided between those who think it will
simply improve our lives and those who think it will completely transform
them.2
Most people involved in any with the field have recognized this schism. The divide in the
emerging field of nanotechnology is not a recent development in its history, and we need
to investigate this divide if we are to really understand the field. This paper aims to
describe the origins of the differing visions of nanotechnology. The typical history of this
field tells us nothing about these differing visions. There are two distinct camps among
scientists and engineers who pursue work on the nanoscale – this is not a novel
observation. But, these two groups rarely interact on any deep level, and, when they do,
they seem to get nowhere, but usually the two groups are dismissive enough of each other
as to avoid real engagement.
Nanotechnology is a well-funded field, but what exactly is being funded? How
did the two sides of the schism divide, and what caused the divide? How does the usual
history of nanotechnology gloss over the definitional issues? Was there ever one coherent
group of nanotechnologists? To pursue the history of the ‘nanotech schism’3 and the
questions that surround it, this paper will take the following form:
1. Definitional Issues – where the divide is most clear;
2. The ‘Standard Story’ – how the history of the field is usually given;
3. Mythology – how the story hides the schism;
4. The Showdown – how the sides fail to engage;
Much of the literature on the U.S.’s National Nanotechnology Initiative uses this phrase.
“The Nanotech Schism,” The New Atlantis no.4 (2004): 101-103.
3
A phrase first used in The New Atlantis, but it will be used throughout this paper.
1
2
4
5. The Splitting Point – where the problems started;
6. Re-evaluating the Divide – how do we get an undivided story?
I want to show how the standard history of nanotechnology fails and how we might
interpret the divide in light of the common historical account. In following this structure,
we can more clearly view and perhaps analyze the current situation in nanotechnology
and in larger areas of interdisciplinarity and technological innovation. The nanotech
schism has something, perhaps, to tell us about the way different groups of people see
technology and the application of science.
Important in this history of nanotechnology’s schism is the character of Eric
Drexler, founder of the Foresight Institute and popularizer of the term ‘nanotechnology.’
Drexler has been a driving force on one side of the divide and a person to oppose or
dismiss for the other side. Drexler had people talking about what he calls ‘molecular
nanotechnology’ in the late 1970s at MIT. But, Drexler is a controversial character
because his vision for nanotechnology is specific, and chemists have argued with him
about the feasibility of his vision.4 A paper about the nanotech schism must feature
Drexler, but I do not want the issues to be obscured by the man. The issues at stake in the
debate over nanotechnology are ideological and scientific; Drexler is important insofar as
he represents and leads one side of the divide.
1. Definitional Issues
Traditional accounts of nanotechnology explain that the nanoscale is the scale
anywhere from one to one hundred nanometers, or 10-9 meters. This scale is interesting
not just for its near-unimaginable tiny-ness (a nanometer is roughly 1/75,000 the width of
a human hair), but because the nanoscale is the scale where quantum and classical
mechanics meet. The scale of nanotechnology itself is interesting, but it is what we can
do at this scale, the scale of molecules and DNA, that is of interest for most. The National
Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) defines nanotechnology as:
[T]he understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to
100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications.
Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering and technology,
4
Most notably Richard Smalley, a Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of C60, or Buckyballs.
5
nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating
matter at this length scale.5
Nanotechnology’s aim, according to the NNI, involves both understanding and control,
but the definition fails to state the degree to which it asks for control of the nanoscale.
This is a point where we start to see the schism. In K. Eric Drexler’s testimony before the
Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space in 1992, Senator Al Gore made
some distinctions that are not apparent in the NNI’s definition.
Senator Gore: All right. There seemed to me to be three different ways in
which the word has been used. Nanotechnology has sometimes been used
to describe very small etching operations of the kind you see in the
smallest computer chips; correct?
Dr. Drexler: Yes.
Senator Gore: That is not really what you are talking about. There would
be some overlap at the boundaries, but that is not really what you are
talking about. Second, there has been an interesting discussion of what
might be called micromachines, and sometimes the word
"nanotechnology" has been used to describe that whole effort. Correct?
Dr. Drexler: Yes.
Senator Gore: And that is not really what you are talking about, either;
although again there is some overlap at the boundary. What you are
talking about when you use the phrase molecular nanotechnology is really
a brand new approach to fabrication, to manufacturing, whereas the way
we make things [today], we will take some substance in bulk and then
whittle down the bulk to the size of the component we need, and then put
different components together and make something. What you are
describing with the phrase molecular nanotechnology is a completely
different approach, which rests on the principle that your first building
block is the molecule itself, and you are saying we have all the basic
research breakthroughs that we need to build things one molecule at t
National Nanotechnology Initiative, “What is Nanotechnology?,” National Nanotechnology Initiative,
http://www.nano.gov/html/facts/whatIsNano.html (accessed November 20, 2005).
5
6
time, all we need are the applications of the research necessary to really do
it. You are saying that the advantages of taking a molecular approach are
really quite startling, and that as a result, you believe it is advisable to
really explore what it would take to develop these new technologies…
Dr. Drexler: I would say that the set of distinctions that you draw are
correct and are very important to understanding the field. The degree of
overlap between nanolithography and micromachines, on the other hand,
and molecular nanotechnology, on the other hand, appears to be
remarkably slight, even though those subjects have commonly been
confused in the popular press…6
But, the distinction that Drexler draws is not one that everyone would agree upon, even
thirteen years later. Nanolithography and micromachines are still classified within the
realm of nanotechnology.7
Elsewhere, Drexler has allowed that “the term nanotechnology itself now
embraces a broad range of science and technology working” on the nanoscale.8 He also
claims that:
With respect to the terminology, so nearly as I can tell from what I have
seen in print, I coined the word "nanotechnology" in the mid-1980's, and it
has subsequently become a buzzword. It is appropriate etymologically to
6
US Congress Senate, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, New Technologies for a
Sustainble World, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, (102 nd Congress,
2nd Session, June 26, 1992).
7
Randy Heflin of Virginia Tech Physics even tells me that: “The micromchines aspect is somewhat vague
and, in a way, pretty much falls into the nanolithography. There is a pretty well developed field called
micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). This involves structures where motion of micron scale objects
can be controlled by electric current or, conversely, they can detect motion and convert it into electrical
signals. An example of the latter is the accelerometers that are used in all air-bag systems in cars to
determine when the air-bag should be triggered. On the other hand, there is also a concept of nanomachines
that says there will be objects that are smaller than a micron that do all the things done by conventional
machinery. We're a long way from realization of that, if it ever occurs. You'll notice that Gore is quoted
as using the phrase ‘interesting discussion of .. micromachines’ rather than ‘demonstrations of
micromachines.’ There are cases now, though, where people have been able to attach nanoscale
metal rods to proteins that undergo circular motion such that the protein swings the bar around like a
propellor. These are called ‘biomolecular motors’ and are quite nifty.”
8
K. Eric Drexler, “Nanotechnology: From Feynman to Funding,” Bulletin of Science, Technology &
Society 24, no. 1 (February 2004): 21-27. Emphasis on the word ‘nanotechnology’ was in the original
article.
7
use "nanotechnology" to describe other small-scale technologies, but…
those are fundamentally different.9
But, the word ‘nanotechnology’ was actually first used in 1974 by Norio Taniguchi, who
presented a paper entitled “One the Basic Concept of ‘Nano-Technology’” at an
International Conference on Production Engineering, which was subsequently published
in their proceedings.10 Taniguchi used the word to mean “the production technology to
get the extra high accuracy and ultra fine dimensions, i.e. the preciseness and fineness of
the order of 1nm (nanometer), 10-9 m, in length.” Taniguchi continues:
The name of ‘Nano-technology’ originates from this nanometer… ‘Nanotechnology’ mainly consists of the processing of separation, consolidation
and deformation of the materials by one atom or one molecule. Needless
to say, the measurement and control techniques assure the preciseness and
fineness of 1 nm play very important role in this technology. 11
Taniguchi’s definition refers specifically to technology, not science, but Drexler, who
helped to popularize the term, was probably unaware of its earlier coinage.
In 1987, the year after Drexler’s Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of
Nanotechnology was published, Albert Franks explained how nanotechnology was used
and its problems:
What is nanotechnology? It is a term that has entered into the general
vocabulary only recently, although it was used at least as early as 1974 by
Taniguchi… We [at National Physical Laboratory] have defined
nanotechnology as the technology where dimensions and tolerances in the
range 0.1-100 nm (from the size of the atom to the wavelength of light)
play a critical role. This definition is too all-embracing to be of practical
value because it could include, for example, topics as diverse as x-ray
crystallography, atomic physics, and indeed the whole of chemistry!...
9
US Congress Senate, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, New Technologies for a
Sustainble World, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, (102nd Congress,
2nd Session, June 26, 1992).
10
Norio Taniguchi, “On the Basic Concept of ‘Nano-Technology,’” Proceedings of the International
Conference on Production Engineering (Tokyo: Japan Society of Precision Engineering, 1974): 18-23.
11
Ibid.
8
Within the next few years a consensus will no doubt emerge that will
roughly circumscribe the activities covered by nanotechnology.12
This consensus that Albert Franks mentions has perhaps not been met to the degree one
might hope. If anything, governmental funding bodies, not scientists, have defined the
field of nanotechnology by what they fund under that term.
At a conference on “Imaging and Imagining” held at the University of South
Carolina in 2004, Christine Peterson, co-founder of the Foresight Institute and ex-wife of
Eric Drexler, spoke on the competing goals of nanotechnology. She said that defining
nanotechnology at this point is impossible. The controversy in ‘imaging and imagining’
is tied up with the term ‘nanotechnology.’ One side of the fight holds that chemistry will
be mechanized. The other side holds that molecules are not controllable and that
chemistry is a difficult art. Peterson thinks both sides are correct, but we can expect them
in different time-frames. In this discussion of the term nanotechnology, Peterson pointed
to the role of rhetoric in how ‘nanotechnology’ is understood.13 This role of rhetoric will
become more important as we begin to probe the story of nanotechnology.
From looking at the definitional context, we can see that what nanotechnology is
is still a point of contention within the field.14 The problematic feature of
‘nanotechnology’ is how it encompasses both nanoscience and nanotechnology. Science
and application are at issue when we use the word ‘nanotechnology,’ and the applications
of nanotechnology seem almost limitless if we take a broad definition. How this problem
came to be can be explained by a look at the ‘standard story’ told of nanotechnology and
examining it more carefully.
2. The ‘Standard Story’
Albert Franks, “Nanotechnology,” Journal of Physics E: Scientific Instrumentation 20 (1987): 14421451.
13
Christine Peterson, “Science versus Engineering: Competing Goals for Nanotechnology,” (paper
presented at Imaging and Imagining Nanoscience & Engineering Conference, Columbia, South Carolina,
March 5, 2004).
14
For every conference on nanotechnology I have attended, someone has pointed out the uncertainty of the
definition of the very thing the conference is organized about.
12
9
The ‘standard story’ of nanotechnology is the standard account of the history of
the field normally given in literature about nanotechnology by supporters of the field.15
Interestingly for this particular inquiry, the standard story remains surprisingly similar no
matter which side of the divide is examined. The standard story of nanotechnology begins
with Richard Feynman’s 1959 speech at Caltech, “There’s Plenty of Room at the
Bottom.” In this speech, Feynman lays out what many identify as the guiding vision of
nanotechnology:
When we get to the very, very small world – say circuits of seven atoms –
we have a lot of new things that would happen that represent completely
new opportunities for design… We can manufacture things in different
ways… The principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against
the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom… it is something, in
principle, that can be done; but, in practice, it has not been done because
we are too big.16
Feynman talks about writing the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin and calls
for the development of better instrumentation to help us see atoms.17
The next leg of the standard story jumps us to 1981 with the development of the
Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM
Zurich. This microscope runs a probe tip over a surface to image the sample’s atomic
properties, and it is able to see and move atoms.18 In 1990, Don Eigler and Erhard
Schweizer moved 35 zenon atoms to spell out IBM, demonstrating how atoms could be
moved and positioned.19
The idea of the ‘standard story’ was first introduced to me by philosopher Davis Baird while I worked as
his research assistant. The ‘standard story’ is first described in Davis Baird and Ashley Shew, “Probing the
History of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy,” in Discovering the Nanoscale (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004).
The ‘standard story’ has been further described by Davis Baird, “The Mythology of Nanotechnology,”
Unpublished.
16
Richard Feynman, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” Engineering & Science 23 (1960).
17
Ibid.
18
Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, “Scanning Tunneling Microscopy,” IBM Journal of Research and
Development 30 (1986): 355-369. (A more accessible introduction is: Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer,
“Scanning Tunneling Microscopy – From Birth to Adolescence,” Reviews of Modern Physics 59, no. 3
(1987): 615-625.)
19
Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer, “Positioning Atoms with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope,” Nature
344, no 6. (1990): 524-526.
15
10
“The Beginning” by Eigler, xenon on nickel 20
This image was used in IBM ads in the early 1990s and the image is currently displayed
in the online IBM STM Image Gallery.21 The story ends with the development of the
National Nanotechnology Initiative (and programs like it in other countries) and the
future open to many possibilities.22
The standard story is a very nice story, and we can find it in a variety of sources,
with variations on whether they mention Drexler’s 1986 Engines of Creation, the
development of the Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), the discovery of
buckministerfullerenes (buckyballs), and the applications now available.23 However, this
standard story overlooks a lot of details that would complicate the picture. The STM was
not the first microscope to image atoms. The cover story of Chemical and Engineering
IBM’s STM Image Gallery, “The Beginning,” http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/atomo.html
(accessed on December 1, 2005).
21
Ibid.
20
22
The first announcement of the plan was at Caltech: Bill Clinton, Presidential Address at the California
Institute of Technology (January 21, 2000).
23
To mention a few places that tell some version of the standard story: Mauboussin and Bartholdson, “Big
Money in Thinking Small,” Credit Suisse Equity Research, First Boston (2003); National Science and
Technology Council, Committee on Technology, Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and
Technology, National Nanotechnology Initiative: The Initiative and its Implementation Plan (Washington,
D.C.: US Government Printing Office, July 2000); Adam Keiper, “The Nanotechnology Revolution,” The
New Atlantis 2 (2003): 17-34; Canon Science Lab, “The History of Nanotechnology,”
http://www.canon.com/technology/s_labo/nano/001/03.html (accessed November 7, 2005); Foresight
Nanotech Institute, “A Short History of Nanotechnology,” http://www.foresight.org/nano/history.html
(accessed November 7, 2005); K. Eric Drexler, “Nanotechnology: From Feynman to Funding,” Bulletin of
Science, Technology & Society 24, no. 1 (2004): 21-27; Ed Regis, Nano: the Emerging Science of
Nanotechnology (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995).
11
News for November 18, 2005, concerns the fiftieth anniversary of atomic imaging. The
magazine reports that:
Long before scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force
microscopy (AFM) became popular atomic-resolution methods for
analyzing materials, and even before transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) was show capable of imaging individual atoms, Müeller and his
students were advancing field ion microscopy (FIM) towards its ultimate
resolution.24
Electron microscopes, under the best conditions, could image with atomic resolution
since the 1950s, and the Topografiner, developed by Russell Young in the late 1960s, is
an instrument that worked in a similar way to the STM.25 The STM part of the story is
further complicated by its difficulty of use in the early days.26 Feynman only called for a
device that could help us see smaller, but the STM and its predecessors, including the
AFM, can actually move and manipulate things on the atomic scale with tunneling force,
in the case of the STM and atomic force in the case of the AFM. The STM was more than
Feynman requested in his 1959 talk. Binnig and Rohrer were not simply fulfilling the
vision of Feynman.
The standard story is further complicated by its Feynman component. Chris
Toumey of University of South Carolina’s NanoCenter explains that Drexler was the real
popularizer of Feynman’s speech, distributing it to friends and talking about it in Engines
of Creation.27 Toumey consulted a number of prominent people from the early
development of the field, including Binnig, Rohrer, and Eigler, as well as Calvin Quate,
Chad Mirkin, James Tour, George Whitesides, and Stan Williams, to ask them if they
Mitch Jacoby, “Atomic Imaging Turns 50,” Chemical and Engineering News 83, no. 48 (2005): 13-16.
Dana Dunkleburger, Personal Conversation with Davis Baird and Ashley Shew (2002); Topografiner @
Penn State Physics, “Topografiner,” http://www.phys.psu.edu/visitors/about_us/history/young/ (accessed
November 27, 2005).
26
Shirley Chiang, Keynote Panel on Practitioners’ Voices, Cain Conference 2005: Nano Before There Was
Nano: Historical Perspectives on the Constituent Communities of Nanotechnology (Philadelphia, 2005);
Dana Dunkleburger, Personal Conversation with Davis Baird and Ashley Shew (Summer 2002); Davis
Baird and Ashley Shew, “Probing the History of Nanotechnology,” in Discovering the Nanoscale
(Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004).
27
Chris Toumey, “Apostolic Succession: Does Nanotechnology Descend from Richard Feynman’s 1959
Talk?,” Engineering & Science 68 (2005): 12-23.
24
25
12
were indeed influenced by Feynman’s speech.28 Neither Binnig nor Rohrer had read the
speech, and they had not heard of the speech until after they published their paper on
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy. Quate, who is one of the developers of the AFM, had
not read the speech. Eigler was aware of the speech, having come across it as a grad
student, and he went looking for the speech after he had manipulated atoms to spell IBM.
The others said the Feynman speech had no influence on their work.29 Toumey thinks a
better founding figure for nanotechnology would be Gerd Binnig with his work on the
STM and AFM, rather than falsely attributing its origins to Feynman.30
Even the work of Eigler and Schweizer does not fit the story perfectly if we take a
skeptical view. The work was done in ultra-high vacuum at 4 K.31 The stunning image
currently on display in IBM’s STM Gallery barely resembles the first image given by
Eigler and Schweizer.
28
All these people would sound really familiar if you read stuff on STM, AFM, and uses of the
microscopes during the 1980s and 90s and currently.
29
Ibid.
30
Chris Toumey, Personal Conversation with Ashley Shew (April 2005).
31
Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer, “Positioning Atoms with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope,” Nature
344, no 6. (1990): 524-526.
13
Eigler and Schweizer’s originally published image 32
The change in ‘the look’ of the image can be explained by the fact that the STM gathers
data in three dimensions, and the software for processing STM imaging has seen
improvements and gives options for tilt and scaled coloring.33
3. Mythology
Davis Baird contends that the ‘standard story’ of nanotechnology plays a
mythological role. Baird asks what “the work that this story is doing for nanotechnology
and for the vision of science and technology” is.34 He thinks that:
The purpose of the mythology of nanotechnology is to direct our attention
to this way of thinking about science and technology, to manipulation and
control, to technology transfer and commercialization, and away from
observation, representation, and the articulation of truth.35
Baird argues that the standard story is used to push the importance of nanotechnology to
policy makers. The National Nanotechnology Initiative expects fundamental nanoscience
and engineering to “build a fundamental understanding and lead to discoveries of the
phenomena, processes, and tools necessary to control and manipulate matter at the
nanoscale.”36 The National Nanotechnology Initiative: The Initiative and Implementaion
Plan presents grand challenges for nanotechnology, including recording everything in the
Library of Congress on a sugar cube.37 The report, in a section called “A Revolution in
the Making: the Driving Forces,” explains Richard Feynman’s 1959 Speech and its
vision, microscopes that fulfilled the Feynman vision, and the United States’ initiative to
continue on this course to stay competitive with other countries.38 The ‘standard story’ is
invoked to direct scientists and engineers toward production, something different from
the understanding of ‘pure’ science.
32
Ibid.
Donna Chen, Personal Conversation with Davis Baird and Ashley Shew (Fall 2002).
34
Davis Baird, “The Mythology of Nanotechnology,” Unpublished.
35
Ibid.
36
National Science and Technology Council, Committee on Technology, Subcommittee on Nanoscale
Science, Engineering, and Technology, National Nanotechnology Initiative: The Initiative and its
Implementation Plan (July 2000), page 14, http://www.nano.gov/html/res/nni2.pdf (accessed December 1,
2005).
37
Ibid., page 14.
38
Ibid., pages 20-21.
33
14
Drexler testified in support of the careful development of his molecular
technology, invoking Feynman’s name to ally himself with a very honored and respected
scientist who shared his vision.39 But, the Feynman story is used to explain funding for
all nanotechnology and nanoscience, not just the development of the Drexlerian vision.
Drexler complains that he has been pushed out of nanotechnology, and that the
Feynman’s vision is not in today’s nanotechnology. 40 How did this happen?
The ‘standard story’ sells nanotechnology to legislators and businesspeople and
hides (though perhaps not intentionally) the nanotech schism. The standard story makes
nanotechnology’s aim exciting – “We could profit from this!” Drexler has found
adversaries in science and in business and has accused scientific leadership of
misrepresenting his vision of molecular manufacturing.41 Though some doubt his specific
vision, some scientists will recognize his vision as inspiring. Stephen O. Wilson, trained
chemist and President of Luna Innovations NanoWorks Divison, has referred to Drexler’s
vision in Engines of Creation as exciting.42 Drexler has been described as an engineer
who studied chemistry and thought about its possibilities, but perhaps did not take
enough chemistry.43 But, physicist Randy Heflin tells me that scientists and engineers do
not hold Drexler in high regard, explaining that he has never really paid much attention to
him.44 Drexler might reply that nanotechnology is simply “misjudged by science because
it is engineering.”45 But, Randy Heflin is doing nanotechnology; he works with an
interdisciplinary team on ionically self-assembled multi-layers (ISAMs) and solar-cell
efficiency, teaches a course on nanotechnology, is developing an undergraduate major in
nanotechnology, serves as Associate Editor for the International Journal of Nanoscience,
39
US Congress Senate, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, New Technologies for a
Sustainble World, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, (102 nd Congress,
2nd Session, June 26, 1992).
40
K. Eric Drexler, “Visions for Nanotechnology: A World Divided,” Imaging and Imagining the Nanoscale
Conference, University of South Carolina (March 3, 2004).
41
Ibid., specifically Drexler attacked Mark Modelowski of the NanoBusiness Alliance and Mark and
Daniel Ratner, coauthors of Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea (2003).
42
Stephen O. Wilson, Personal Communication with Ashley Shew and Brandiff Caron (November 22,
2005).
43
Ibid.
44
Randy Heflin, Personal Interview with Ashley Shew (October 14, 2005).
45
K. Eric Drexler, “Visions for Nanotechnology: A World Divided,” Imaging and Imagining the Nanoscale
Conference, University of South Carolina (March 3, 2004).
15
and has worked on a textbook on nanotech for students.46 One must ask where Drexler
really stands in relation to the field.
4. The Showdown
Nobel laureate and chemist Richard Smalley and Eric Drexler squared off
publicly on the possibilities of molecular manufacturing in Chemical & Engineering
News in 2003. In this ‘Point-Counterpoint’ face-off, nanotechnology’s prospects are
argued through letters by Smalley and Drexler.47 The debate started because, in 2001,
Smalley published an article about the ‘fat fingers’ and ‘sticky fingers’ problems in
Scientific American, and Drexler responded with a public letter on his Foresight
Institute’s website.48 The Chemical and Engineering News debate starts with Drexler’s
response and provides three subsequent letters in which the men argue over the
possibility of molecular manufacturing and take shots at each other.49
Drexler accuses Smalley of misrepresenting his work; Smalley challenges
Drexler to explain the chemistry of his proposed molecular manufacturing, and
condescendingly says “Please tell us about this new chemistry”; Drexler discusses
machine-phase chemistry using computers for precise control; Smalley concludes that
Drexler just doesn’t ‘get it.’50 Then, to top it all off, Smalley says that Drexler and his
associates have “scared our children.”51 The very public debate between Smalley and
Drexler concerns both technical and ethical matters. The clash between these two men
was made quite public by the Chemical and Engineering News debate, and it highlights
the difficulty that the two sides of the divide have in communicating with each other.
Smalley and Drexler both refer to Feynman’s grand ideas. Smalltimes explains the
argument between Drexler and Smalley:
46
Randy Heflin, Personal Interview with Ashley Shew (October 14, 2005); Virginia Tech Department of
Physics, Randy Heflin, http://www.phys.vt.edu/~rheflin/ (accessed December 1, 2005).
47
Rudy Baum, “Point-Counterpoint: Nanotechnology,” Chemical and Engineering News 81 (1 December
2003): 37-42.
48
Richard Smalley, “Of Chemistry, Love, and Nanobots,” Scientific American 285, no. 3 (September
2001): 76-77; K. Eric Drexler, Foresight Update 52,
http://www.foresight.org/Updates/Update52/Update52.3.html (accessed December 2, 2005).
49
Rudy Baum, “Point-Counterpoint: Nanotechnology,” Chemical and Engineering News 81, no. 48 (2003):
37-42.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid.
16
Smalley and Drexler are both visionaries and have contributed
significantly to the field of nanotechnology. Smalley’s concept of
nanotechnology parallels that of the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s
focus on physical properties that occur in materials below 100 nanometers.
Drexler believes this definition is too broad because it covers making
nanoscale products and not just nanoscale systems. As an astute colleague
noted, this is probably more a fight over research dollars than staying true
to Richard Feynman’s ideas.52
Feynman is brought up by both sides of the nanotech divide, and the standard story
discounts the differences in definition by giving us a nice linear story of the development
of nanotechnology.
5. The Splitting Point
James Murday of the Naval Research Laboratory has explained that nanoscience
needed funding, but nanotechnology sells the science to Congress and has suggested that
there was an intentional misnaming.53 Despite the funding, most ‘nanotechnologists’
would still classify themselves first as whatever professional training they first received.54
Most ‘nanotechnologists’ (if there really is such a thing) will tell you that we’ve been
doing nanotechnology since the 1970s.55 But, the word nanotechnology really grew in
Patti Glaza, “Even At Loggerheads, Great Minds Inspire Us To Dream Grandly,” Smalltimes (October
11, 2005).
53
James Murday, Keynote Panel: Practitioners’ Voices, Nano Before There Was Nano: Historical
Perspectives on the Constituent Communities of Nanotechnology, Cain Conference (March 18, 2005).
54
Cathy Murphy, Personal Interview with Ashley Shew (March 18, 2004); Dr. Murphy would classify
herself as a chemist first. Others, like Civil Engineer Richard Ray and Mechanical Engineer Jed Lyons,
would say that they are “not really” nanotechnologists, but instead are people who like to work in crossdisciplinary teams; Richard Ray, Personal Interview with Ashley Shew (March 29, 2004). Others, like
biologist Loren Knapp, would classify themselves as a nanotechnology, if by nanotechnologist I meant
someone who works with the nanoscale, which would include all biologists who work with cell and
molecular biology.
55
Robert Hicks of the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry, Welcome and Introductions, Nano
Before There Was Nano: Historical Perspectives on the Constituent Communities of Nanotechnology, Cain
Conference (March 18, 2005); Diane Folz, Conversation with Ashley Shew (September 2005); this
sentiment is often expressed by scientists with a groan over the hype of the field, but one must note that
nanotech’s popularity has not hurt their budgets.
52
17
popularity after the publication of Drexler’s Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of
Nanotechnology in 1986.56 One reader explained in 1999 that:
If you were to ask the world's greatest authorities on modern technology to
select the five most influential books written thus far on that subject,
Engines of Creation would probably be on most (if not all) lists.57
Almost twenty years after its debut, Engines of Creation is still widely read by people
interested in technology.58 The Drexler vision of nanotechnology, which Drexler
attributes to Feynman, continues to be perpetuated by Drexler and his many followers.59
One way to look at how the field of nanotechnology has split is to look at the literature of
the field.
In 1995, science write Ed Regis came out with Nano: The Emerging Science of
Nanotechnology, which, rather than telling a story about nanotechnology tells the life’s
history of Eric Drexler. Regis talks about how, on his trips to speak in Japan, Drexler
realized that some of the things they were calling ‘nanotechnology’ were not his
nanotechnology. Regis tells us that how “[t]he term nanotechnology, he [Drexler] said,
was being used ‘to glamorize the production of nanoscale blobs.’”60 But, one must
remember that ‘nanotechnology’ was coined separately and earlier by Japanese scientist
Norio Taniguchi, a fact which neither Regis nor Drexler seem to acknowledge.61 Japan’s
government has been funding nanotechnology for longer than the United States. Ten
56
Stephen O. Wilson, Personal Conversation with Brandiff Caron and Ashley Shew (November 22, 2005);
Ed Regis, Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology (New York: Little, Brown and Company,
1995), page 275; Richard Smalley even says that Drexler’s book got him excited about the field: Rudy
Baum, “Point-Counterpoint: Nanotechnology,” Chemical and Engineering News 81 (1 December 2003):
37-42.
57
Robert Morris, Amazon Top 10 Reviewer, “Engineer of Innovation,” Amazon.com Review of Engines of
Creation, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385199732/qid=1133554818/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/1033060435-6938208?n=507846&s=books&v=glance (accessed December 2, 2005). There is no italicization
of Engines of Creation in the original review.
58
In my own experience, Engines of Creation one of the first books on nanotechnology that I was expected
to read as a research assistant for Davis Baird of the University of South Carolina on a project about the
history of STMs, and it is often brought up in conversations about the development and history of
nanotechnology as the book that helped raise interest in the field.
59
Tihamer Toth-Fejel, Personal Conversation with Ashley Shew (March 4, 2005); all the Foresight
Nanotech people are examples of people who subscribe to the vision (http://www.foresight.org/).
60
Ed Regis, Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology (New York: Little, Brown and Company,
1995): 280.
61
Norio Taniguchi, “On the Basic Concept of ‘Nano-Technology,’” Proceedings of the International
Conference on Production Engineering (Tokyo: Japan Society of Precision Engineering, 1974): 18-23; Ed
Regis, Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995).
18
years before the US National Nanotechnology Initiative, the Atom Technology Project
started in Japan in 1992 with the Joint Research Center for Atom Technology.62 The
project lasted for ten years and has laid the foundation for Japan’s current status in the
field of nanotechnology.63 Japan’s Nanonet explains:
A project initiated in 1992 was carried out for the upcoming era of
nanotechnology in Japan. The project focused on atom technology, a type
of nanotechnology with emphasis on the bottom-up approach. This
project, whose aim was partially to merge semiconductor technology and
biotechnology, was conducted at the Joint Research Center for Atom
Technology (JRCAT), where about 100 researchers from the business,
academic and government sectors were brought.64
The project was aimed in four areas:
1) identification and manipulation of atoms and molecules;
2) formation and control of nanostructures on the surface and at the
interface of materials;
3) spin electronics;
4) theoretical analysis of the dynamic processes of atoms and
molecules.65
The Atom Technology Project used AFM for DNA observation and combined
experimentalists and theorists with Japanese firms interested in the technology.66
Drexler’s radical nanotechnology is taken seriously by very few working
scientists. One exception to this is Nadrian Seeman of New York University’s Chemistry
Department.
Seeman is one of the rare working, grant-getting, patent-producing
nanoscientists who believes that nanotech will eventually progress beyond
Yasumoto Fujita, “Heterogeneous Scientists Meet in the National Lab: The Atom Technology Project in
1990s Japan,” Panel 2: Explorations, Nano Before There Was Nano: Historical Perspectives on the
Constituent Communities of Nanotechnology, 2005 Cain Conference (March 19, 2005).
63
Nanonet Interview with Kazunobu Tanaka, Nanotechnology Researchers Network of Japan, Japan
Nanonet Bulletin 17 (April 29, 2004).
64
Ibid.
65
Ibid.
66
Yasumoto Fujita, “Heterogeneous Scientists Meet in the National Lab: The Atom Technology Project in
1990s Japan,” Panel 2: Explorations, Nano Before There Was Nano: Historical Perspectives on the
Constituent Communites of Nanotechnology,” 2005 Cain Conference (March 19, 2005).
62
19
building better tennis rackets and create useful things from the bottom up - at least, one of the few who can openly admit it without jeopardizing his
ability to get government grants.67
Few people who adopt the Drexlerian vision of nanotechnology are actually getting
funding and working towards the vision, but a few of them do exist. Richard Booker, a
former student of Richard Smalley, and Earl Boysen explain Drexler’s place in the field:
Eric Drexler illustrates molecular manufacturing and lays the groundwork
for the public’s current perception of nanotechnology (some of which is
still, um, mired in speculation) in his 1986 book…68
The public understanding of nanotechnology, largely speculative, stems from Drexler,
but the field’s scientists and engineers might have a differing vision, which we might be
able to trace among researchers in Japan or in the United States.
6. Re-evaluating the Divide
We might cynically conclude that the story of nano is about the use of a certain
vision to get funding for less exciting research. The history of nanotechnology, looked at
with the complications that we get from probing the schism, seems less coherent and less
constructed. There is no resolution to the nanotech schism yet, but viewing the schism as
we have, we can see that the problems in having a linear story of nanotechnology. The
Feynman-STM-IBM-NNI story is constructed to encourage application and funding; the
story is not untrue, but it does not admit complication. And the field of nanotechnology,
full of researchers from different disciplines and countries and ideologies, is complicated.
Disagreements over the definition, the possibilities, the origin, and the science have not
been resolved. To overlook this aspect of nanotechnology is to ignore the larger
sociological struggle in which the field is enmeshed. Nanotechnology is well-funded and
well-promoted, but, realizing the complications in the history and in the current situation,
we must be careful in our assessments.
67
Howard Lovy, Nanobot Blog, http://nanobot.blogspot.com/ (accessed December 3, 2005); Dr. Seeman
was actually one of the first scientists I saw speak on nanotechnology at the ‘Reading Nanoscience’
Workshop at University of South Carolina in August 2002.
68
Richard Booker and Earl Boysen, Nanotechnology for Dummies (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2005).
20
To reevaluate the nanotech schism, we must let go of the standard story and adopt
a broader perspective on the field by going back over the facts. The history of science has
often been told as a linear story about progress and improvement over time, but things are
never as tidy as they seem. In the beginning of this paper I compared myself to the tip of
a scanning tunneling microscope, never being able to gain an objective image because of
my position and the force I use in imaging. But, as we have learned, the STM does more
than simply ‘read’ the surface below. By applying a tunneling current, the tip of an STM
can actually move atoms around, as we see in Eigler and Schweizer’s IBM image. I want
to suggest that our study of history is not unlike the functions of the STM. As we get
closer to the sample, we see individual instances, atoms of our investigation, more
clearly, but we also impact the situation with our investigation. We warp the sample in
our analysis, but this is unavoidable if we wish to get closer to the past.
In the case of nanotechnology, we are close enough to the history that we have
easy access to the complications and messiness that are often inaccessible to us because
of our distance. Our perspective is a matter of our proximity, and, while we cannot yet
see except from close-up, we must be patient in our gathering of the data and the moving
about of pieces of historical fact. We have the vantage point to be careful in our scanning,
feeling – pushing – every bump of the surface before concluding our analysis. If we fail
to look from up close and we fail to push on the details, asking for what really happened,
we end up with a dishonest representation of our sample, our slice of history. In the case
of nanotechnology, the history was a constructed story to urge a certain vision for the
field and its future. But, in moving closer, we come to discover the messy details, like the
schism we find and the complications to the standard story, which too many histories of
the field have neglected.
21
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