by Sally Morem

Created on: February 05, 2009   Last Updated: March 09, 2009

"Eons of evolution and millennia of history have prepared this challenge and quietly presented it to our generation. The coming years will bring the greatest turning point in the history of life on Earth. To guide life and civilization through this transition is the great task of our time."

-K. Eric Drexler, "Engines of Creation"

During the history of civilization, manufacturing consisted of the art of arranging a very large number of atoms in meaningful, useful patterns. By carving up macro amounts of atoms in creative ways, our artisans and fabricators have produced millions of different types of products for our use and enjoyment.

These methods are comparatively crude as seen from the molecular level. Casting, planting, grinding, potting, boring, weaving, milling, harvesting, and welding processing techniques lop off and shape atoms in great thundering statistical herds. It's like trying to make things out of Lego blocks with boxing gloves on you hands (only worse). Yes, you can push the Lego blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together precisely the way you'd like.

Even under such limitations, humans have made great technological progress in the last two hundred years. Each generation of machinists have built upon their predecessors ability to manipulate smaller and smaller amounts of matter precisely and duplicate what they've created. Think about the development of interchangeable parts around the time of the Civil War. Miniaturization, precision, and replication. These are the keys to technological progress in constructing anything, anything at all.

If we had the technology to arrange carbon atoms loosely, we would create coal. If we could arrange them tightly in a three-dimensional grid, we would create a diamond. But, if we could arrange them in very complex patterns along with other elements, we would create something as complex as food, any kind of food.

We have already learned how to arrange microscopic amounts of silicon (found in sand), add a few other meaningful trace elements, and build computer chips.

Miniaturization, precision, and replication: These keys have led to the development of microtechnology in the past thirty years, which allows us to handle tiny artifacts a thousandth of a meter long. Microtechnology produces useful microparticles such as "encapsulated water" (rub some white powder and it will wet your hands), polymer and pigment coatings that paint very smoothly, and tiny beads used in cosmetics

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