--- OT ---
(Thread: I apologize for the intrusion. I've been spending time over at the Dell thread, and LT gave a link to here from there.)
LT wrote:
is this a joke?
No, not at all. (I added a paragraph at the end of the previous note, please reload it.)
This is going to happen. Follow the links in my profile to educate yourself. Seriously, I want to buy you the book Nano by Ed Regis. I want to help as many people as I possibly can to understand this coming technology, because it will hit in 12 years and we need to prepare for it.
Zyvex ( zyvex.com ) is a company whose express purpose is creating the first assembler (a nanomachine that can make more of itself or other things). There is a $250,000 Feynman Grand Prize that will go to the first person or group to achieve two distinct goals in nanotechnology ( foresight.org ). There is money being spent on this; it is not just a pipe dream.
Eric Drexler was in front of the Senate Subcommittee (?) speaking about this a few years ago (it's in Nano, which was written in 1995), and a general (?) walked out of there saying, "If you're in the military and don't know about this, you need to!"
(I don't know if I got the quote or government department or level of the official right, as all the copies of Nano I own spent the night in my Corvette in a friend's garage -- the hurricane came through, and luckily missed us. I keep them in my car to give out to doctors and other people I see throughout the day -- I've had some nasty abdominal problems in the past 4 months, and have been seeing a lot of doctors; Western medicine failed, and it looks like Eastern medicine is having a beneficial effect. That doctor is Dr. Karp, at 954-771-5600, located on Cypress Creek near Dixie Highway, for those of you near Ft. Lauderdale. He stutters, but does excellent work -- I went in with my intestines in huge pain, and after a magnet and acupuncture treatment, I ended up just starving. As soon as I eat there's pain in my intestines, and crossing my arms on my chest causes the same pain, so it's just the pressure -- and that has greatly reduced my intake, I've lost 19 pounds so far. My first meal of the day is now usually at 6:30 or 7 at night, as it's just too painful to eat during the day. So I'm losing weight and getting fatter, because my body thinks it's in hibernation mode. But this too shall pass.)
Lucretius, I am a fairly humorous individual, but I assure you this is no joke. We are on the verge of something spectacular; I am looking forward to 2010.
The way we'll get there is through protein engineering. Proteins have sections that are hydophilic (they love water, and open themselves up when placed in it to maximize their surface area), and sections that are hydrophobic (they hate water, and close in on themselves to avoid it).
Each protein therefore has a certain configuration that it always folds into. We just need to determine which particular chain of amino acids will form a protein that, when dropped in water, folds into the nanomachine we desire. So the challenge is just an engineering problem, not a science problem. It's akin to building a bridge from one side of a riverbank to another; as opposed to determining how an atom splits and how to take advantage of it. We know the "language" of the protein; we just need to decode it. With faster and faster computers, we can do modeling that doesn't require a real-world prototype, and can thus get there faster.
Nanomachines are already being designed; see foresight.org for a molecular manipulator design. There are many others on this page, and others on other pages at the Foresight web site. Electronic membership is free; they'll send monthly updates to your email address (it's monthly, so you're not flooded).
I don't expect everyone to think like me. I just want to use what little success I've had in the markets to help educate people on this coming technology. You can think of it as a religion if you like, but I'm not pushing it on people. Read the book, follow the links, do your due diligence, and then make up your own mind whether you think this can happen.
Just remember that your cells are proof that this technology will happen. Your cells work on atoms and molecules. Why shouldn't we be able to make machines that do the same?
Good trading,
KenB |
