CryoNet #32960 - #32964

CryoNet - Thu 21 Oct 2010

    #32960: nanotechnology [John de Rivaz]
    #32961: "Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a targ... [Jonano]
    #32962: In an alternate universe. . . [MARK PLUS]
    #32963: Technological progress [Perry E. Metzger]
    #32964: Charles Babbage analogy [MARK PLUS]

Rate This Digest: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32960%2D32964

Administrivia

To subscribe to CryoNet, send email to:
    [email protected]
with the subject line (not message _body_):
    subscribe
To unsubscribe, use the subject line:
    unsubscribe
To post a message to CryoNet, send your message to:
    [email protected]
from the same address to which you are aubscribed.
Send questions, comments, or feedback to [email protected]
with "CryoNet" or "cryonics" somewhere in the Subject line.

Since all CryoNet messages are archived and accessible via WWW,
including search engines, make certain that your postings
reflect how you want the world to see you.

To retrieve past messages, send email to:
    [email protected]
with the message numbers in the subject line.
(Message 0003 describes the advanced syntax.)
You also can retrieve them via the CryoNet web page at URL:
    http://www.cryonet.org/

For administrative or other questions/suggestions, send email
to me at "[email protected]" with "cryonics" in the subject line.
    - Kevin Q. Brown


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32960
From: "John de Rivaz" <[email protected]>
Subject: nanotechnology
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 10:49:50 +0100

I have recently heard a radio programme about Feynman, and it said the he 
(not Drexler) is the true inventior of the subject - in 1959 with this 
paper:

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html

so on this basis maybe 2060 is the target for assemblers to appear. But of 
course it will still be a long time between their appearance and their use 
in cellular surgery of the type required to cure cancer (really this is the 
only way, to suggest anything else for a complete cure is fraud) and aging 
and freezing damage.

Maybe one should look at the time lag between the Nazi mechanical computer 
and Windows 98? [1938 to 1998 - 60 more years]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

-- 
Sincerely, John de Rivaz:  http://John.deRivaz.com for websites including
Cryonics Europe, Longevity Report, The Venturists, Porthtowan, Alec Harley
Reeves - inventor, Arthur Bowker - potter, de Rivaz genealogy,  Nomad .. and
more

----- Original Message ----- 
From: CryoNet
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 10:00 AM
Subject: CryoNet #32951 - #32953



Message #32951
References: <[email protected]>
From: Gerald Monroe <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:37:37 -0500
Subject: Re: CryoNet #32949 - #32950

--001636164a555469080492e51f47

Perry : what's the closest real world industry or field that is working on a
precursor to molecular manufacturing?

One thing about the overall field that keeps nagging at me : we have a good,
solid description of what molecular manufacturing is and how it will we
work.  Many scientists are confident it will work (and I think the prior art
of nature itself is proof enough).  How many years typically passed between
when writers and scientists of the past accurately described a technology
and when it was first prototyped?  For instance, Babbage's analytical engine
was described in 1837 (refined until his death in 1871) and the first
mechanical computer that was comparable was the German Z1, completed 1938.
 101 years. 


 Content-Type: text/html;

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32960

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32961
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:59:45 +0200
Subject: "Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a targ...
From: Jonano <[email protected]>

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one
else can see." --Schopenhauer

"There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of
a new idea." --P. W. Bridgman

"I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died
of ignorance." --RubACn Blades

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32961

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32962
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 07:44:42 -0700
Subject: In an alternate universe. . .
From: MARK PLUS <[email protected]>

Suppose someone published a description of the laser as a theoretical
possibility in 1960, but nobody could build one despite all the
impressive calculations and illustrations. What would we think of the
laser idea if, 50 years later, we still didn't have lasers, but we had
"laserololgists" who referred to the original text as something like
scripture, wrote and talked about all the marvelous things they
thought lasers could do if we could build them, held conferences on
dealing with the social impact of lasers' arrival, warned the U.S. not
to fall behind other countries' laser programs, solicited grants for
more theoretical studies of "laserology," etc?

A rational person who witnessed such a circus in 2010 would dismiss
lasers as a fantasy and an exercise in rent-seeking, most likely.

-- 
Mark Plus
Life is short: Freeze hard!

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32962

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32963
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:22:42 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <[email protected]>
Subject: Technological progress
References: <[email protected]>

> Subject: Technological Progress
> From: Brian Wowk <[email protected]>
> 
> In Cryomsg 32953 Mark Plus wrote:
> 
> > Brian Wowk endorses Scott Locklin's observations about the
> > failure of technological progress in Cryonet #32937:  
> 
> > http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=32937  
> 
>      I did not say that technological progress had "failed."  I
> simply agreed that the lives of Americans changed less in the past
> 50 years than they did during the 50 years before that.

Really? Were we debating gay marriage on the internet in 1960? Would
anyone have believed you if you had told them we would be doing that?

I'd argue that the lives of Americans have changed radically in the
last 50 years. The problem is, as with fish not noticing water, it is
difficult for most people to notice changes when they're marching
along with them.

I regularly attend a seminar by video conference these days. The way I
do this is that one of the participants in the seminar gets out their
laptop and video chats me over the wireless in the conference room the
seminar meets in. I'm generally in another city, also on a laptop
connected by wireless. People send me copies of the slides via the net
at the last moment so I can follow along. This is all done with
equipment that is not merely ordinary but actually cheap.

Think nothing has changed in medicine? A couple of years ago, I had a
set of symptoms that lead my doctor to worry about the blood flow in
my brain. I went to a lab, got an MRI done of my head, and went away
on my business. In 1960, the amount of unpleasant radiological
equipment, including contrast agents, that would have been needed to
do this would have made it essentially impossible. Today it is
actually cheap and simple. My ophthalmologist routinely checks the
surface topography of my eye using a computerized optical instrument
that would have been impossible to contemplate in 1960. The deaths
in Iraq among soldiers would have been as high or higher than in
Vietnam were it not for astonishing improvements in trauma medicine
that have saved something like 90% of the people who would have
otherwise died 40 years ago. 90% is astonishing. We can even reattach
severed limbs. Lets not even discuss the radical transformation of
transplants, which were very difficult and generally resulted in
organ rejection before the development of appropriate drugs -- they
now happen orders of magnitude more often.

I could go on and on.

People just have no sense of how much everything has changed.

-- 
Perry E. Metzger		[email protected]

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32963

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message #32964
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:50:36 -0700
Subject: Charles Babbage analogy
From: MARK PLUS <[email protected]>

In Cryonet #32949, Gerald Monroe writes:

http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=32951

>How many years typically passed between when writers and scientists of the past accurately described a technology and when it was first prototyped?  For instance, Babbage's analytical engine was described in 1837 (refined until his death in 1871) and the first mechanical computer that was comparable was the German Z1, completed 1938. 101 years.

One, Babbage's machine would probably work because its design doesn't
make physically dubious assumptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_engine

Two, Babbage's ideas didn't lead to a cult movement in the 19th
Century which wasted decades of other people's lives speculating about
the miracles his invention would bring about. Instead the technically
inclined people in the 19th Century directed their efforts towards
more immediately practical things like railroads, applied chemistry
and telegraphy. (I wonder how many "nanotechnologists" also consider
themselves economically sophisticated, yet don't see their own
diseconomic behavior?)

Three, what about comparing nanotechnology to more apposite cases
where the original conceptions led to new technologies quickly?

-- 
Mark Plus
Life is short: Freeze hard!

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=32964

----------------------------------------------------------------------

End of CryoNet Digest
*********************