Customer Reviews

Nano: The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology: Remaking the World-Molecule by Molecule

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I found Nano an interesting read. As a book, it lacked a lot of the technical guts, and more importantly, a broad overview of the potential social issues involved. But although I found this a little dissapointing, I stand in defence of the author for the simple reason that the average person usually doesn't have the skill to read deep technical texts (a skill which is developed by a long interest and/or study in the area). As a primer to the extremely important concepts and issues concerning nanotechnology, I give it a thumbs up. He generally sticks to the realities of the technology, avoiding the inevitable sci-fi fan rubbish which can congeal around such concepts (look a space travel, after all). I can understand not going into the more social and political issues of such an emerging technology as it can scare people, but I still think he should have elaborated more in this area. People have enough trouble dealing with the technology of today, having them (even more) unprepared for future technologies can be extremely dangerous. The best read on Molecular Nanotechnology for the average reader would still remain 'Engines of Creation', by Dr. K Eric Drexler. The book is still value for money, regardless. I give it four stars.

I enjoyed this book a great deal. Regis is a good writer and the subject matter is compelling. It doesn't get 5 stars for two reasons: the lack of counterpoint about the development of nanotechnology (IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN DAMMIT! WE CAN'T STOP IT): please. Also, the author shows almost no creativity on the effects of nanotechnology on future society. The deepest thoughts are about free steak and getting to sit around without working 9-5 jobs?

This book is a very good history primer. If you're REALLY into nanotechnology though, read Drexler's works.

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.

This book is a pretty good account of K. Eric Drexler and his quest to bring "nanotechnology" into the popular and the scientific world. If you are looking for a book with some real theory behind it, this may not be the book for you. There is some science, but it's pretty light. You may want to get some of the books in the bibliography or something. As the book explains, part of the reason that real science on nanotechnology is hard to find is because it hasn't been widely researched yet. This book is somewhat balanced between Drexler's vision and his critics', but it usually errs on Drexler's side. To be fair to the reader, this book really should say that it's really more of a study of K. Eric Drexler than of nanotechnology.

this is a great book to get a basic introduction to nanotechnology. it covers the span from 1959 when richard feynman first thought about nanotechnology up through the years as more people considered the possibilities, to the current day evangelist, k. eric drexler.

you'll get the basic concepts, the scope of possibilities, and most importantly (i think) is the possible *dangers* in creating and using nanotechnology. few scientists consider the down-side to their creations/ideas. eric drexler does.

i think after reading you'll be both astounded and scared to death of the possibilities of nanotechnology. great book!

A damned shame. I rather enjoyed "Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition", but "Nano" was pretty bad.

If you're interested in nanotechnology -- and if you're at all interested in the future, you should be -- read "Unbounding the Future" (Drexler) or "Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance" (Crandall, ed.). If you're up for the more nuts-and-bolts level, read "Nanosystems" (Drexler, ed.). But don't waste your time on "Nano".

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.

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.

I read this book as a hardcover about 9 years ago when I was still in highschool, it was a fast and very interesting read then, and it still is today. Even if it lacks actual scientific material(Though possesses a lot of basic science facts and detailed examples of real nanotechnology as well as mostly theoretical) and glorifies the what-ifs and Ed Regis' obsession with this dude Drexler, it is a very good book for the science dreamer. And it helped me get an A on my research paper even if my teacher didn't understand what the hell I was babbling about. This is a great book for a highschool-level research paper, but iffy for a serious college paper, since it is so outdated and the technology won't come in our lifetimes thanks to politics and a god complex.

I give this an 82% enjoyment, as you don't have to be a science nut to understand the book.

I'm not sure how this book turned up in my reading list -- I believe I found it on the back shelf of a bookstore. I read it because I have been interested in Nano-stuff ever since reading a terrific science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem long ago, and more recently Kurtzweil's new book -- The Spiritual Machine. Ed Regis writes in a well-informed pop journalistic style. His smoothly written narrative weaves together the many stories, names and achievements of nano-experts -- most notably Eric Drexler, the high priest of nanotech, who predicts an age when all of life's need will be satisfied by tiny, human-engineered molecular engines. Although bacteria are frequently invokes as examples of nanotech machines, Drexler's tiny molecular contraptions are remarkable in that they do not require water and function at a level even smaller than the familiar biochemical landscape of the living cell. Unfortunately, although Drexler has designed simple molecules that will probably work as simple tools, many questions remain unanswered. How are these devices powered? How are they built? What will they do? Even Richard Feynman confessed that he didn't have any ideas about real-world applications. Although the book is filled with ideas of Nano-robots swarming through our veins, fixing damaged brain cells, etc. -- almost all the real plan required to these microscopic things is just vaporware. In the end, vision is not knowledge, the map is not the territory, and I predict that the future will be far different from the magical nirvana that is envisioned here. The book make me better informed, and left many ideas buzzing around my head like tiny . . . well, never mind.

-- Auralgo