Chaff

As a term, nanotechnology is clearly ambiguous. Moreover, it has already been claimed by the Drexlerians, apostles of K. Eric Drexler, who was one of the first to popularize nanotechnology with the publication of his 1987 book, Engineers of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. According to Professor Steve Block, the Drexlerians have a futurist vision of nanotechnology in which self-replicating molecular assemblers programmed at the molecular-scale manufacture arbitrary products at the atomic level, molecule by molecule, bottom up. Some scientists have attempted to distance themselves from the futurist Drexlerians by claiming the term nanoscience. There’s also another motivation for the excision of “technology” in this term. Nanoscience, as a term, captures the learning-the fundamental understanding of processes and materials at the nanoscale-that many scientists feel is necessary before or at the same time that researchers turn to engineering solutions. The term nanotechnology, on the other hand, reinforces what Chidsey describes as a “glib attitude” that “technology is the goal of science at this length scale.”