A number of articles on the forthcoming Royal Society study on Nanotechnology appeared this morning. Nothing unusual there, the press are often given an embargoed copy of reports so that they can read it provide sensible comments. Not this time, however. Sources within the RS tell us that nobody will see the report until its official launch, so any comments on the contents are just idle speculation.
Rather than twiddle our thumbs waiting for the report to be released, we passed the time reading the excellent Soft Machines (published in August by Oxford University Press) by Richard Jones of Sheffield University (and not to be confused with The Soft Machine by William Burroughs or the dreaded progressive rock band of the same name).
Professor Jones argues, rather eloquently, why the future will be wet and nanotech will have more in common with biology than with conventional engineering. The book conclude that the diamandoid approach may be unlikely to yield results, as, unlike approaches drawn from biotech or the semiconductor industry, there is no practical knowledge base to draw on and works against the grain of the physics of the nanoworld rather than going with the flow of physical, biological and economic forces.