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Product Details
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: PublicAffairs; First Edition (US) First Printing edition (May 7, 2013)
“A stimulating tour through current thinking about and future possibilities for nanotechnology, from one of its creators… A crackerjack piece of science and technology writing.”
Albany Times Union
“K. Eric Drexler writes in his accessible new book "Radical Abundance" that the digital revolution is about to give way to a form of production that will radically transform the world economy and that could also save the environment: nanotechnology, or more specifically, atomically precise manufacturing.”
Nature Magazine
“Nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler bids us to leap in at the technological deep end. We can transform the way we make everything from bridges to circuit boards, he argues, by harnessing molecular machines that operate on digital principles. The result? Desktop or garage facilities that use less fuel, land and energy than today’s vast factories and supply chains. The technical and political challenges of unleashing ‘atomically precise manufacturing’ are substantial, but Drexler cuts deftly through the complexities.”
About the Author
K. Eric Drexler developed, named, and popularized the concept of nanotechnology. Currently at the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology at Oxford University, Drexler is a frequent public speaker on scientific issues, addressing audiences of politicians, business leaders, scientists, and engineers in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Radical Abundance is a dictionary example of prestalgia. We know atomically precise manufacturing (APM) is coming. We know what it will look like. We know it will solve huge problems and make life for us and for the planet infinitely better. We want it yesterday. But we have to wait for the details to be sorted out. Hurry up guys. We're waiting for the good old days.
Nanotechnology took a bad rap for theoretically ushering in an era of microscopic robots that will report on you, burrow into your brain, and wreak havoc in the food chain for their own nefarious purposes. Drexler has been fighting this image pretty much since he coined the term in the mid 80s. What nanotechnology and APM are really about is a quantum leap in manufacturing efficiencies and pollution reduction and abatement. The upside is incalculable.
Put simply, he says, what computer systems did for processing information, APM will do for processing matter. Just as we no longer use pencil and paper to run a financial model, we will no longer assemble automobiles in a football stadium of a factory. All the equipment needed will fit in a garage. Cars will be turned out to order, in minutes. Factories can therefore make anything and be anywhere. No need for anything to be manufactured across the planet and shipped by boat, rail and truck. This will save on fuel, on packaging, on raw materials, and make everything less expensive. And factories can produce other factories just as easily as cars.
It will be done by adding atoms to atoms, molecules to molecules and microblocks to microblocks, fast and effortlessly - millions or billions per minute and per microblock. Effortlessly because they can self assemble using thermal motion.Read more ›
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When he gets to the point, this is an interesting read, but he spend so much time developing conceptual and philosophic frameworks and taking twice as long as he could to make the point that I probably missed some great moments out of boredom. On the other hand, he makes a meticulous argument that the ingredients are in place for APM and we just need to have the right cooperation to bring them together. Those ideas are inspirational.
I get the feeling he has spent so many years apologising for "nanotechnology" not coming to fruition fast that he feels he needed to defensively belabour the point about the progress already made and redefining of the goals.
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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Back in 1986 K. Eric Drexler coined the term "Nanotechnology" in his first book, "Engines of Creation". He defined nanotechnology as a potential technology with these features: "manufacturing using machinery based on nanoscale devices, and products built with atomic precision". Here in his sequel, "Radical Abundance: How A Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization", Drexler expands on his prior thinking, as well as correcting much of the misconceptions regarding the exact nature of nanotechnology, dismissing fears of a dystopian future replete with nanobots and other evil outcomes associated with nanotechnology. Instead, Drexler offers readers a most compelling, optimistic vision as to how nanotechnology can be used to benefit humanity, in grappling with issues as vexing as dealing with pollution and climate change and in making tremendous strides in improving medicine so it can benefit much of humanity. Drexler begins by offering us a brief history of technology and its relationship with science, emphasizing the importance of Karl Popper's philosophy of science as a means for influencing the future direction of nanotechnology. In his advocacy of atomically precise manufacturing, Drexler notes how engineers should adhere to common sense solutions to engineering problems, by crafting solutions that are both consistent and efficient with regards to science and engineering and yield truly useful products, not prototypes destined to languish almost forgotten in the technological research centers that conceived of them.Read more ›
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I don't like criticizing Drexler's Radical Abundance, but I am anyway, in the hopes that he will elect to write a sequel to Engine's of Creation, or maybe radically, update, Engine's with new material and speculations. Drexler did speak to 3D printing which is great, but I believe Drexler is under-rating 3D printing tech, and over-estimating Nanotech. But that's just a guess on my part, and I could be way, wrong. The earlier work Engine's was better in describing scenarios, on how life would change once we attained nano. This is what Abundance is sorely, missing. Please write a new work, describing how nanotech would effect manufacturing, economics, space travel, and especially politics. Now, that would be interesting to me.
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Eric Drexler wrote one of the most exciting books on the possiblities of nanotechnology ever written. This is not that book. This book, written almost 30 years later, is full of bitterness about how the word "nanotechnology" has been redefined, and how what he really meant hasn't been followed up on very well. It restates the case for "atomicaly precise manufacturing," but really covers little, if any, new ground for anyone interested in near-future science possiblities. It's okay... but it's not great.
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