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- Introduction to the New Series
- Richard P. Feynman:
There's plenty
of room at the bottom.
The classic given by R.Feynman in 1959 in which stated ideas
later developed under the name of nanotechnology. Specially interesting is
that nanotechnology means not only extreme miniaturization but also taking
advanage of a new kind of physical laws to enormously increase computational
efficiency. Feynman put this as follows.
"When we get to the very, very small world---say circuits of seven
atoms---we have a lot of new things that would happen that represent
completely new opportunities for design. Atoms on a small scale behave like
nothing on a large scale, for they satisfy the laws of quantum mechanics.
So, as we go down and fiddle around with the atoms down there, we are
working with different laws, and we can expect to do different things. We
can manufacture in different ways. We can use, not just circuits, but some
system involving the quantized energy levels, or the interactions of
quantized spins, etc."
- David Deutsch:
Quantum theory, the
Church-Turing principle and the universal quantum computer, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A400 97-117, 1985.
It is another classic, dealin with quantum-teoretical foundations of
nanocomputing. To appreciate its impact, see
a list of its citations.
See also
some important links to nanotechnology sites.
A popular exposition of basic ideas is found in
Deutsch's interview in which he gives a philosophically crucial
statement:
"A quantum computer would be an object far more complex than the whole of the
classical universe." He makes also a guess that quantum computers for
common use may appear in about 20 years.
-
K. Eric Drexler:
Nanosystems, Molecular Machinery and Computation.
New York,
John Wiley, 1992. On line - Contents and selected parts.
Drexler is the main pioneer of nanotechnology and the one who invented the
this name.
Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution.
An important text published by the Foresight Institute; a passage worth
special attention is concerned with pocket supercomputers.
Eric Drexler, Chris Peterson, Gayle Pergamit:
Nanotechnology: the Coming Revolution in Molecular Manufacturing
This part was finished on October, 27, 2001. New items will be added
successively.
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