X-Message-Number: 5055 Date: Thu, Oct 1995 21:10:04 -0700 From: John K Clark <> Subject: A few ideas short of a review -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Ed Regis's book "Nano" is brilliant, Peter Thomas's review of that book (Captain Future and the very very small, Wired 3.11page 186) is not. Thomas admits that "Drexler's science seems reasonable" yet he nevertheless maintains that nanotechnology deserves ridicule and Drexler himself must be "a few atoms short of a molecule". Thomas's reasoning, if I may call it that, is that nanotechnology must be impossible because otherwise things could get odd someday. Not illogical, not self contradictory, just odd. Well of course it would be odd, these things are not in any of our experience so how could they be anything but peculiar? If history has taught us anything, it is that as long as something does not violate the laws of physics it can't be branded impossible just because late 20 'th century bipeds on a planet orbiting a small star on the edge of a run of the mill galaxy think it's "weird". John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBMJBSl303wfSpid95AQHPAATw4JMsoaiKCwkmnvpTG/vBl6uNZp6oqDq4 2INVgW6G0t+u4tXq6E5TIBuiT7xRNdRYNRjind8BUjVEC6rIhtemEV1HR+35W0Fx T1Dexd3r1YZmDOKRDWozZX/ioRfdm+mSzIXzxAQgYvJZgiOuGpIDyBG2agOeFEAr yI9aRb3BuIr6HR1JUIq84fl5AuXrcn1PWZXeovt54A1CENuO1ps= =/csw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5055