Re: Military and nanotech

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> Now we're getting somewhere. This I agree with: *PARTS* of research are
> sped up enormously by the availability of fast computers, other parts
> are not much affected at all ("could be done walking through the
> woods"). So, for example, a project that today requires 50/50 of
> computer-time and "in woods" time, would, if we had infinitely fast
> computers be twice as quick as it is today. (I am here assuming that
> fast computers alone don't imply strong A.I., if it does, and the
> computer can also take the virtual "walk in the woods" the equation
> obviously changes)

Am I a person, a computer, or both?  I am not being facetious.  I have 
done a lot of research where the Aha! time was very small compared to 
the effort that goes into envisioning the problem and visualizing what 
goes on.  I would probably buy into a model where a factor of 100 
improvement in computing resources (and maybe a factor of 5 in 
visualization/display resolution) allows for cutting the "thinking" time 
in half.  What matters is not the ratios or HOW computer resources are 
used to improve the speed and quality of the thinking.  Just that it 
does.  Once you acknowledge that it does, the rest follows.

Does it?  As I said, I have seen it myself in my own research.  Work 
that was laborious and painful years ago is now almost trivial.  On the 
Apollo Guidance Computer project I worked with integrated circuts that 
had (was it 8 diodes and 3 transistors?) to implement a NAND gate. 
Today cutting edge logic chips (CPUs) have about 100 million 
transistors.  And a design team about the same size.

I will grant you that part of the problem of designing a general purpose 
assembler is "think time".  Some of that thinking has been done.  A lot 
more remains.  But the scaling that has to be applied to those solutions 
is the chief consumer of computing power.  Some of it can be traded off 
for elegant design--read think time.  Much of it cannot.

Let me take the real problem we want to solve and propose a strawman 
solution:

1. This is how we will pick up atoms from the feedstock.
2. This is how we will sort atoms in the feedstock by atomic number (and 
possibly isotope).
3. This is how the atoms will be transported from the feedstock to the 
workface.
4. This is how the atoms will be attached to the workface.
5. This is the atmosphere and temperature in the work area.
6. This is how programming is fed to the assembler.

Now I take some engineering experience and say I need to move X number 
of atoms per second from the feedstock to the workface, and remove a 
total of Y watts of heat from the workface, and Z watts from the 
assembler itself.  I'll assume for now that 6 includes checking the 
programming to insure that I am not making gray goo or the like, and all 
done.

Worst case there are maybe a dozen Aha! type insights that have to occur 
to convert that strawman into a complete blueprint for an assembler.  To 
be honest, there are actually two sets of these problems.  One for the 
aparatus used to create the first assembler, and one for the first 
assembler itself.  But my real point is that the number of inventions 
required by a "proof of principle" implementation is quite small.  The 
amount of engineering work to convert that framework into a useful 
assembler is horrendous.  Given the right engineering tools, going from 
an atom at a time proof of principle device to one that is 
simultaneously moving millions of atoms is where most of the computation 
comes in.

And just like with the computer resources, at some point you stop trying 
to improve the design and build it.  In fact, let me go a lot further, 
and ask the question:  How many atoms per second must an assembler place 
to be worth building now?

There is a different breakdown of the problem where atoms are assembled 
into subassemblies, and those subassemblies are put together to create 
the final product.  In fact, the feedstock may include small assemblies. 
  Above I ignored that issue.   In this question, it gets factored out. 
  However you build things, the figure of merit for an assembler or a 
nanofab is the number of atoms per second it can assemble.  If you think 
it is a better unit of measure, answer in moles per second. ;-)

We may not yet be at the point of having all the answers, but we are 
almost to the point of having asked all the right questions.

-- 
                                                     Robert I. Eachus

"Quality is the Buddha. Quality is scientific reality. Quality is the 
goal of Art. It remains to work these concepts into a practical, 
down-to-earth context, and for this there is nothing more practical or 
down-to-earth than what I have been talking about all along...the repair 
of an old motorcycle."  -- from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle 
Maintenance by Robert Pirsig