/ Connec ting he Quantum Dots:Nanotech science nd Cultur e N. KATHERINE HAYLES, Department of English, UCLA Imagine a world in which "utility fog" simulates a chair while you watch lV, mimi s bathwater when you prepare for bed, and transforms itself into the bed you sleep on; a world in which micro-robots inside the body extend human life spans to centuries, manufactured bi mechanical organisms clean the air and water, and material abundance is readily available to everyone on earth. I Such is the future envisioned by the proponents of nanotechnology. Poised between reality and dream, present and future, fact and fiction, nano echnology has become a potent cultural signifIer. Precisely because it is not yet clear if it will indeed be the "next big thing" or a blip on the screen, nanotechnology has attracted both skepticism and scientific research, along with a frenzy of entrepreneurial interest, government funding, and fictional speculation. Nanotechnology represents not so much a theoreti- cal breakthrough as a concatenation of previously known theories, new instrumentation, discoveries of new phenomena at the nano-level, and synergistic overlaps between disciplines that appear to be converging into a new transdisciplinary research front. "Nano" denotes one billionth of a meter, roughly the size of 10 hydrogen atoms; the DNA molecule, by comparison, is 2.3 nanometers in diameter. Nanotechnology is concerned with events and mate- rials appropriate to this scale. Nanotechnology, in concert with nanoscience, for the first time in human history offers the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules, making possible radical new approaches to materials engineering. Consider, for example, work in 1985 by Konstantin Likhareva, a physics professor at Moscow State University, who along with his students Alexander Zorin and Dmitri Averin discovered they could control the movement of a single electron off a so- called "coulomb island," (a conduct r weakly connected to the rest of a nanocircuitJ, leading to the possibility of a single-electron transistor, realized in 1987 by Gerald Dolan and Theodore Fulton of Bell Laboratories! As silicon chip technology approac es the limits beyond which iniaturization is no longer feasible, discoveries like these promise to extend the miniaturization of information indefI- nitely using nanotechnology. Also relevant is the work by Christopher Murray and his team at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center using colloids for data storage (the colloids consist of magnetic nanoparticles in suspen- sion, with each particle containing about 1,000 iron and platinum atoms). Spread on a surface, the nanoparticles crystallize into two- or three-dimensional lattice arrays. As George M. Whitesides and J. Christopher Love explain in "The Art of Building Small," "Initial studies indicate that these arrays can potentially store tril ions of bits of data per square inc , giving them a capacity 10 to 100 times greater than that of present memory devices.'" Research in other areas include "quantum d ts" that fluoresce at selective wavelengths, making them useful tags to identifY a variety of biological mol ecu es; micro fluidic devices t at can deliver test solutions to specifIc parts of a cell under study; and dendrimers (branching molecules with large surface areas) that can transport DNA into cells for gene therapy or deliver drugs with precision directly to the organ or tissue that needs it.
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8/7/2019 Hayles - Connecting the Quantum Dots Nanotechscience and Culture
Connectinghe QuantumDots:NanotechsciencendCultureN. KATHERINE HAYLES, Department of English, UCLA
Imagine a world in which "utility fog" simulates a chair while you watch lV, mimics bathwater when
you prepare for bed, and transforms itself into the bed you sleep on; a world in which micro-robots
inside the body extend human life spans to centuries, manufactured bio-mechanical organisms clean
the air and water, and material abundance is readily available to everyone on earth. I Such is the
future envisioned by the proponents of nanotechnology. Poised between reality and dream, present
and future, fact and fiction, nanotechnology has become a potent cultural signifIer. Precisely because
it is not yet clear if it will indeed be the "next big thing" or a blip on the screen, nanotechnology
has attracted both skepticism and scientific research, along with a frenzy of entrepreneurial interest,
government funding, and fictional speculation. Nanotechnology represents not so much a theoreti-
cal breakthrough as a concatenation of previously known theories, new instrumentation, discoveries
of new phenomena at the nano-level, and synergistic overlaps between disciplines that appear to be
converging into a new transdisciplinary research front.
"Nano" denotes one billionth of a meter, roughly the size of 10 hydrogen atoms; the DNA molecule,
by comparison, is 2.3 nanometers in diameter. Nanotechnology is concerned with events and mate-
rials appropriate to this scale. Nanotechnology, in concert with nanoscience, for the first time in
human history offers the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules, making possible
radical new approaches to materials engineering. Consider, for example, work in 1985 by Konstantin
Likhareva, a physics professor at Moscow State University, who along with his students Alexander
Zorin and Dmitri Averin discovered they could control the movement of a single electron off a so-
called "coulomb island," (a conductor weakly connected to the rest of a nanocircuitJ, leading to the
possibility of a single-electron transistor, realized in 1987 by Gerald Dolan and Theodore Fulton of
Bell Laboratories! As silicon chip technology approaches the limits beyond which miniaturization is
no longer feasible, discoveries like these promise to extend the miniaturization of information indefI-
nitely using nanotechnology.
Also relevant is the work by Christopher Murray and his team at the IBMThomas J. Watson Research
Center using colloids for data storage (the colloids consist of magnetic nanoparticles in suspen-
sion, with each particle containing about 1,000 iron and platinum atoms). Spread on a surface, the
nanoparticles crystallize into two- or three-dimensional lattice arrays. As George M. Whitesides andJ. Christopher Love explain in "The Art of Building Small," "Initial studies indicate that these arrays
can potentially store trillions of bits of data per square inch, giving them a capacity 10 to 100 times
greater than that of present memory devices.'" Research in other areas include "quantum dots" that
fluoresce at selective wavelengths, making them useful tags to identifY a variety of biological mol-
ecules; micro fluidic devices that can deliver test solutions to specifIc parts of a cell under study; and
dendrimers (branching molecules with large surface areas) that can transport DNA into cells for gene
therapy or deliver drugs with precision directly to the organ or tissue that needs it.
8/7/2019 Hayles - Connecting the Quantum Dots Nanotechscience and Culture
=0 Yet many of the visionary applications remain to be developed-or may prove impractical once de
[. opment is attempted. According to Charles Ostman, the largest market share by far of present pate
& in nanotechnology is held in the cosmetic industry, particularly by Revlon, and involve new kind
~ surface coatings that withstand water and have desirable hydration and other properties.' Better
creams are a long way from the global social and economic transformations envisioned by K.
Drexler, occasionally called "Mr. Nanotechnology" because of his influential 1986 book Engine
Creation, a visionary treatment of nanotechnology that popularized the research program laid ou
]959 by Richard Feynman's famous after-dinner speech (and later essay) entitled "There's Plenty
Room at the Bottom.'"
Given that Drexler has founded the Foresight Institute to further research in nanotechnology, o
nized awards to recognize such research, published in 1992 a technical textbook on nanotechnolo
entitled Nanosystems: IVlolecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation, co-authored w
Chris Peterson and Gayle Pergamit in ]992 another book on nanotechnology, Unbounding the Fut
The Nanotechnology Revolution, taught the flfSt course ever on the subject at Stanford University,
tirelessly promoted nanotechnology in general, one might think he would have unquestioned statin the fIeld." Yet many scientists look on him with suspicion and even disdain; one researcher w
ing in the field told me a colleague was so upset with Drexler that, when seated with him at a con
ence, he challenged him to a flstflght. What evokes this kind of passion?
One answer, suggested by my colleagues Victoria Vesna and James Gimzewski in 'The Nanome
Syndrome: Blurring of Fact and Fiction in the Construction of a New Science," is that Drexler ha
wrong when he proposes such mechanical devices as gears, pulleys, and conveyor belts made ou
nanomaterials to fashion the replicators and assemblers necessary to turn out macroscale quantit
of the new materials promised by nanotechnology.' These devices, they argue, are characteristic of
Industrial Revolution and are entirely retrograde when envisioned at the nanoscale. They thinkinspiration should come from the realm of biology rather than mechanics. The issue is complicated
the ambiguous boundary between the biological and mechanical at the microscale (bearing in m
there is an important distinction between nanotechnology, which operates at the scale of a billio
of a meter, and cells, which are several hundred times larger). [t is common practice to refer to
mechanism that maintains fluid equilibrium in a cell as a "sodium pump," which is a mechanical m
aphor if not a mechanical actuality. The e coli bacterium incorporates a molecular motor that rota
a corkscrew tail functioning like a propeller (unlike the whiplike flagella of larger organisms). Th
are hundreds of other examples where biological processes are described in mechanical terms. R. D
Astumian in "Making Molecules into Motors" describes research that constructed a ratchet and pfrom the organic molecules triptycene and helicene; other research mimicked the action of kine
within a cell, which Astumian describes as a "molecular forklift" because it transports proteins al
a nanoscale track called a microtubuline."
As this example illustrates, part of the ambiguity results from a fuzzy boundary between lite
description and metaphoric interpretation. Described as a forklift, kinesin sounds like a machi
described as part of the cell's interior, it sounds biological. Drexler himself frequently uses mech
cal imagery when biological imagery would be as feasible. His definition of a machine-"any syst
usually of rigid bodies, formed and connected to alter, transmit, and direct applied forces in a pr
8/7/2019 Hayles - Connecting the Quantum Dots Nanotechscience and Culture
termined manner to accomplish a specifIc objective, such as the performance of useful work"-is suf-
fIciently ambiguous as virtually to guarantee there can be no clear and stable boundary between the
biological and mechanical.' One could almost say that the decision to locate micro-phenomena in the
biological or mechanical realm is as much a function of the metaphors chosen as of the phenomenathemselves. The choice of metaphor is consequential, for it lays down a linguistic track that thought
tends to follow and suggests connections that bind new ideas into networks of existing conceptual
structures.'o What Drexler gains through his mechanical metaphors and imagery is the connotation
that nanomaterials can be engineered, built, and controlled, as are mechanisms; what he loses is the
connotation of dynamic change, mutation, and evolution characteristic of living matter. The subtext
for his metaphoric choices centers on issues of control, for it is precisely the prospect that nanotech-
nology can replicate uncontrollably that is the greatest fear surrounding its development. By empha-
sizing the mechanical, he not only suggests that this technology can and will be constructed; he also
minimizes the biologically-inflected implication that it may follow an agenda of its own independent
of its creators' purposes.
Another-and perhaps more revealing-reason for the animosity toward Drexler permeates much of the
scientifIc literature on nanotechnology. Typical is the headnote to the brief essay by Drexler in the
Scientific American collection Understanding Nanotechnology. The editors acknowledge that "Many
researchers in the field of nanotechnology discount the ideas of K. Eric Drexler and yet it is impossible
to ignore his impact on the field. "" The problem is spelled out more explicitly in the "Foreword" in
a paragraph haunted by Drexler, whose presence is all the more notable because he is not mentioned
by name. "But, if truth be told," the editors write, "-nanotechnology, apart from nature's realization,
is still at present largely a vision for the future. But here vision and imagination are all important; in
fact, there is ample room for scientific visionaries to coexist symbiotically with the futurists who fas-
cinate, and sometimes prod, us with exotic dreams of worlds to come. Ultimately, however, all of our
fanciful notions must be subjected to the refinement and distillation of true laboratory science. These
hopes and expectations must be tempered by the reality that shortcuts generally do not exist; concrete
bridges to new understanding must always emerge from a base of reproducible and verifIable scientifIc
fact."" The problem with Drexler now becomes clear; scientists worry that he promises far too much
with far too little experimental work to back up his claims. They fear he is squandering the cultural
capital that science accumulates by patient and often laborious laboratory work, the source of "repro-
ducible and verifiable scientifIc fact" for which no "shortcuts" can substitute. [n a more sinister version
of this objection, Drexler can be seen as garnering the glory of predicting a sweeping revolution for
which others, with great cost and effort, struggle for years to accomplish even in small part.
The gap between vision and realization is apparent in Steven Ashley's "Nanobot Construction Crews,"
an analysis of the Zyvex Corporation. Zyvex was founded in 1997 by James R. Von Ehr II, a multimil-
lionaire who deeply believed in Drexler's vision." Von Ehr persuaded Ralph C. Merkle, a colleague
of Drexler's in the Foresight Institute, famous for his work on cryptography for Internet security, to
join it in 1999 (he has recently left Zyvex in July 2003 to take a position as director of the Georgia Tech
Information Security Center"). Zyvex aims to create a nanoassembler, a nanoscale manufacturing
device (assemblers are crucial in Drexler's vision of how nanotechnology can scale up to produce
macroscale quantities of materials). To get to a nanoassembler, Zyvex starts from microelectrome-
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8/7/2019 Hayles - Connecting the Quantum Dots Nanotechscience and Culture