4 of 10

Write now Article Tools

Page 3 of 4

political veteran.

Smalley accused Drexler of deliberate fear mongering and worse, telling congress that his ideas were pure fantasy. A coalition called the NanoBusiness Alliance added the horsepower of venture capitalist F. Mark Modzelewski, long-time opponent of Drexler, who quipped that Drexler's ideas were like "a wino's claims on skid row that bugs are crawling under his skin."

Faced with this kind of high-powered opposition, unable to get any meaningful support from politically inept Drexler, and having to deflect a growing public perception that nanotechnology was dangerous, thanks to Crichton's popular novel, House and Senate staffers finally pulled all the funding provisions for development of Drexler's molecular assemblers out of the compromise bill. President Bush, with a smiling Smalley at his side, signed a bill that virtually ignored Drexler's ideas in favor of more mundane but "attainable" goals.

It was no contest. When the dust cleared, Drexler found himself alone, outside the scientific mainstream of the very discipline he had invented.

But it wasn't over by a long shot. Somebody forgot to tell the grass roots researchers that their goal was impossible. Since they had no idea that what they wanted to do was scientifically impossible, they kept right on trecking. Smalley's old stomping ground, Rice University, was at the center of this hotbed of scientifically untenable activity.

For eight years commencing back in 1997, Prof. James M. Tour lead a research team consisting of Kevin F. Kelly and graduate students Yasuhiro Shirai, Andrew J. Osgood, and Yuming Zhao. Since Smalley neglected to tell these guys that they couldn't get there from here - guess what?

They did just that.

On September 26, 2005, they published their results in the American Chemical Society's Nano Letters. They titled their article, "Directional Control in Thermally Driven Single-Molecule Nanocars," and there is no doubt that they have created something that was considered completely impossible by Smalley and colleagues just a few months ago.

These are very tiny vehicles, four nanometers long and three wide - 20,000 would fit side-by-side on a human hair. The wheels consist of 60-atom carbon Buckyballs that really roll across a landscape of pure gold. Each axel on the car and truck, and all three on the trimmer pivot independently so the vehicles can negotiate around, over, or through atom-sized potholes and mounds on the gold surface.

According to Tour, these single-molecule vehicles

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Nanotechnology explained?
We want to hear your view. Write now!