That said, Smalley opposing view was and is correct. Molecular manufacturing, where the manufacturing systems are also on the molecular scale, just don't work i

That said, Smalley opposing view was and is correct. Molecular manufacturing, where the manufacturing systems are also on the molecular scale, just don't work in the way that Drexler envisioned, and pushing grey goo scenarios when even the basics don't seem possible, is a sure way to get people turned off on nanotech - which uses huge fabbers. In the 1990s I worked on molecular dynamics of biological systems. The nanotech hype was large, and I looked into the idea of switching fields, figuring that someone with my background could make some good money at it. Only to find that all the plans and simulations I saw seemed to be in vacuum, and assumed the diamond parts were effectively like steel machine parts, with no van der Waal forces or charges or cruft in the way. I still think those who propose nanotech fabbers have little understanding of small-scale physics/chemistry. A summary of the debate between Drexler and Smalley is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexler%E2%80%93Smalley_debate_on_molecular_nanotechnology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexler%E2%80%93Smalley_debate_... .