Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small [Hardcover]

William Illsey Atkinson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0814471811 | ISBN-13: 978-0814471814 | Publication Date: May 7, 2003 | Edition: 1st

Nanoscience is taking technology to a realm of astounding possibilities. With Nanocosm, Atkinson reveals a spectacular view of the immediate future of nanoscience and its applications in medicine, computing, engineering, and other arenas that affect our world, redefining how we work, play, and live.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Atkinson, who makes his living as a consultant explaining technology to business types, ostensibly wrote a book debunking the myths about nanoscience, a trendy research field that "a fringe of boosters" claims will enable us to develop machines at the molecular level. But that subject is largely lost in a maze of digressions, as Atkinson veers from pretentiousness to chattiness and spends a lot of the book discussing everything except nanotechnology: world politics, the march of time, old jokes and even his interview subjects' workout routines. He offers a sophomoric couplet mocking the author of the most successful book on nanotechnology, cursorily dismissed as an overzealous fantasist, and an inept science-fiction passage attempting to imagine a nanotech-shaped world a decade or so down the road. Atkinson's personal observations mar the narrative: he makes fun of a Swiss scientist's accent and a Japanese woman's inability to pronounce her r's clearly. Every once in a while, there's an attention-grabbing scientific revelation, like a description of how Buckminster Fuller's architectural achievements have turned out to be mirror images of carbon atoms, but these occasional insights are simply not worth slogging through the rest of this book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...written in an engaging, readable style." -- The Vancouver Sun

"Atkinson has a knack for making highly technical,theoretical topics seem immediate and visceral.. -- CIO Australia

"This book is just loaded with what I consider earth shaking information." -- Circuitnet.com

"an irreverent, comprehensive romp, by an experienced science popularizer through the many fascinating details of the nano-world--- -- The Wall Street Journal, May 23,2003

"is an expert survey of nanotechnology" -- Library Bookwatch February 2004

...Nanocosm is a pleasure to read. -- Today's Chemist at Work

...written in an engaging, readable style. -- Vancouver Sun, Bruce Constantineau

..is a scientific travelogue that describes the new nano-frontier in clear everyday language. -- Dr.David Akin, National Business and Technology Correspondent, CTV News, Toronto

If there were an award for the nanotech book that's the most accessible ... Nanocosm would be the only nominee -- The Georgia Straight April 17, 2003

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1st edition (May 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814471811
• ISBN-13: 978-0814471814
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,547,016 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Perfectly clear - Atkinson NOT in the Drexler camp, August 24, 2003

By 

Stephen Prine (Aurora, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small (Hardcover)

I found Atkinson's constant degradation of Drexler 'and his ilk' neither helpful nor accurate. I get the impression that he was snubbed by Drexler at a cocktail party and has never forgiven him. He rails against 'the nanoboosters' for making absurd claims of what is possible with nanotechnology and then proceeds to out do them with his own predictions.
The occasional inaccuracies (Buckminster Fuller was perfectly aware of and was indeed inspired by nature in his geodesic work: Bill needs to read Synergetics) are also annoying. He argues that mechanical nanobots are ludicrous because their small parts would break and no one would be around to fix them. Uh, if you can build something you can probably fix it - or more likely, you can just build a trillion more and not worry about it. This subject is discussed by Drexler in Nanosystems but Atkinson implies the opposite.
Outside of the near constant Drexler bashing I found Nanocosm to be a fairly well written journalistic survey of the Dr's of nanoscience and their wee doings. Published by the American Management Association, it's a self professed technology guide for venture capital execs, "a gift to the business people whose unending efforts continue to create wealth throughout the globe" ... my heros

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I should have read the reviews, December 19, 2003

By 

James Ryan (Northern California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small (Hardcover)

I made the mistake of buying this book on impulse at a bookstore, without reading any reviews. I'll follow through by offering my comments on the book without biasing (or informing) myself by reading the other interviews first.

Atkinson did a lot of interviews for this book, and they are the highlight. He seems to do a good job of conveying the general nature of what his interviewees are working on. It was good to get a (possibly too) high-level view of what's going on in the field.

That said, my respect for the author declined steadily. He makes Eric Drexler into some kind of demon. Certainly a responsible author could question the feasibility of Drexler's ideas and his ways of promoting them, but there is no call for the sort of repeated attacks made here. A second annoyance was that the author's explanations of scientific points never seemed to ring true. Maybe he's trying to simplify drastically for his business readers, but his statements are not just simple - they are misleading. The quotes from his interviews were much better. Third, he'll often illustrate a single point with two or more metaphors, neither of which makes the point any clearer. In fact they almost seem to miss the point. Finally, he frequently tosses in his own political and cultural biases, which uniformly detract from the book.

By the way, my background is computer programming and a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering. I know little about nanotechnology.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bullish on nano, May 29, 2003

By 

Randall C. Willis (Washington, DC, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small (Hardcover)

As the hype-laden echoes of the "nano" revolution slowly fade into the background, research into nanotechnology has started to shift its focus from an "I wonder what happens if" phase to a "So what can I do with it?" phase. Journal pages are beginning to fill with the sober second thought of researchers who are trying to apply neat and tidy nanoconcepts to the messy worlds of physics, chemistry, and biology. In some cases, these scientists are making bold statements about the future, but more often, they are merely whispering about what we can do today. It is on behalf of this latter group that Bill Atkinson wrote Nanocosm.
In Nanocosm, Atkinson brings his effusive and sometimes castigating style to the various fields of materials science, genomics, and business, and tries to separate the myth from the math in nanotechnology, traveling the globe to talk to the people on the front line of research and marketing.
Atkinson starts his book with a short history of nanotechnology and a metric marathon from the macroscopic to the microscopic and beyond, trying to put the nano realm in its place. He also introduces some of the main characters who might be considered the progenitors of nanotechnology-specifically, Richard Feynman, who conceptually presented nanotechnology in his seminar "There's plenty of room at the bottom"; and Eric Drexler, the author of the first book about nanotechnology, Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation. By the third chapter, however, Atkinson begins to focus on what is happening today, starting with an analysis of materials science and its role as the foundation of nanotechnology.
The next several chapters continue Atkinson's explorations into the practical realities of nanotechnology. In one section, he discusses the financial requirements of nanotech research, describing the effects of the Clinton initiative and how the dotcom implosion might actually have released funds that had previously been swallowed by Web and software development. In another section, Atkinson describes the use of quantum tunneling technology as a method to transfer waste heat and how research into microfluidics is changing the medical diagnostics industry.
As Atkinson talks to the people on the front line, he discovers that one of the biggest challenges that will be faced by nanotech engineers is that the concept of "same only smaller" might not hold true. It was (and is) firmly believed by some researchers that moving from the microworld to the nanoworld simply required that everything become magnitudes smaller. But as theory becomes reality, researchers are finding that physical concepts largely ignored in the macroworld such as Brownian motion and van der Waals interactions become overwhelming challenges in the nanoworld. When you function at the size of an atom, a random photon can become a serious problem. Given these problems, nanotech engineers have to rewrite the design manuals.
There are two challenges to reading Nanocosm, however. Atkinson's writing style is very personal and a little scattered, something he fully admits in his foreword. He isn't presenting this material as an exhaustive or definitive survey of nanotechnology. Rather he is writing about the things and people who he finds interesting. At times, his personality can overwhelm the reader and he can come across as glib or coarse. Which leads to the second challenge.
Atkinson is not a fan of Eric Drexler, and he presents his distain for the man in no uncertain terms. In small doses, littered throughout the book, his anti-Drexler stance can be overlooked. But in Chapter 5, Atkinson begins a discussion of Drexler and his scientific shortcomings that borders on a rant. Although there appears to be validity in Atkinson's arguments, his envenomed approach can be tiresome and this section can be skipped in favor of Chapter 6.
These challenges aside, however, Nanocosm is a pleasure to read. Somewhere between Richard Feynman and Douglas Adams are the writings of Bill Atkinson. If the reader keeps this in mind, they will enjoy the book immensely.