I believe Nanosystems is mostly valid physics (though I am still unsure about this) and in the far future, after GDP has doubled ten or twenty times, we will think of it like current rocket scientists think of Tsiolkovsky’s writing: speculative science that gave a glimpse surprisingly far into the future through an understanding of the timeless basic principles at play, though misses many implementation details. And just like the sense of perspective by knowing in 1914 it’s theoretically possible to send people to Mars on a ship with airlocks, fueled by hydrogen-oxygen engines and steered by cold gas thrusters, I think we gain an enormously valuable perspective on the universe by knowing that it is (probably) theoretically possible to perform most chemical reactions and many molecular assembly tasks with 99% efficiency using machines that precisely place atoms, self-replicate once an hour, and require only ultrapure gases, various trace metals, and electricity as input.
I believe Nanosystems is mostly valid physics (though I am still unsure about this) and in the far future, after GDP has doubled ten or twenty times, we will think of it like current rocket scientists think of Tsiolkovsky’s writing: speculative science that gave a glimpse surprisingly far into the future through an understanding of the timeless basic principles at play, though misses many implementation details. And just like the sense of perspective by knowing in 1914 it’s theoretically possible to send people to Mars on a ship with airlocks, fueled by hydrogen-oxygen engines and steered by cold gas thrusters, I think we gain an enormously valuable perspective on the universe by knowing that it is (probably) theoretically possible to perform most chemical reactions and many molecular assembly tasks with 99% efficiency using machines that precisely place atoms, self-replicate once an hour, and require only ultrapure gases, various trace metals, and electricity as input.