Walter Watts included a link to a Smalley article, I have some comments.
Fat fingers
Sticky fingers
These two proposed problems are avoided by using a modular approach.
Modules consisting of several to thousands of atoms are produced in mass
using old fashioned synthesis. Products are assembled from these
modules. Any fingers which may be used by assemblers (and fingers may
not turn out to be the only technique employable) are then not so fat
nor as sticky due to considerable dimensional difference.
Secondly, Smalley seems to envision bonds being formed by a sort of slow
and careful, and above all intimate, placement of reactants. This shows
his lack of understanding of chemical bonding in general, and activation
energy in particular -- not to mention his lack of imagination. When
doing molecular assembly a reaction site on the substrate would be
accurately targeted by the assembler and any component (single or multi
atom) must be delivered in a ballistic fashion to the reaction site. If
my hand is too sticky to drop a ball I may still be successful in
throwing it. Or, in the case of a largish ball, the far side of the ball
may be pressed onto a substrate and adhere there with more stick than
exists between hand and ball -- allowing removal of hand without
dislocation of ball.
For christ's sake, even Michael Crichton (in Prey) was able to solve
these two 'unsolvable' problems. Smalley is as a 'creation scientist.'
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Woolley: Closet nudist*, Certified Scientist Type, Confirmed
Atheist, radical thinker, notorious f__k-up, late bloomer, and
self-proclaimed singular authority on the abysmal depths of human
stupidity that only we few lack.
* Part time comedian and recovering idealist ... now show me yours :-)
http://home.centurytel.net/rickw aperick@centurytel.net---
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