Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known for introducing

molecular nanotechnology Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) is a technology based on the ability to build structures to complex, atomic specifications by means of mechanosynthesis. This is distinct from nanoscale materials. Based on Richard Feynman's vision of miniat ...

(MNT), and his studies of its potential from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) was revised and published as the book ''Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation'' (1992), which received the

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercial ...

award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992. He has been called the "godfather of nanotechnology".

Life and work

K. Eric Drexler was strongly influenced by ideas on

limits to growth ''The Limits to Growth'' (''LTG'') is a 1972 report that discussed the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation. The study used the World3 computer model to simula ...

in the early 1970s. During his first year at

, he sought out someone who was working on extraterrestrial resources. He found

Gerard K. O'Neill Gerard Kitchen O'Neill (February 6, 1927 – April 27, 1992) was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, a physicist famous for his work on

storage ring A storage ring is a type of circular particle accelerator in which a continuous or pulsed particle beam may be kept circulating, typically for many hours. Storage of a particular particle depends upon the mass, momentum, and usually the charge o ...

s for

particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental ...

s and his landmark work on the concepts of

space colonization Space colonization (or extraterrestrial colonization) is the human settlement, settlement or colonization of outer space and astronomical bodies. The concept in its broad sense has been applied to any permanent human presence in space, such ...

. Drexler participated in NASA summer studies on space colonies in 1975 and 1976. He fabricated metal

thin film A thin film is a layer of materials ranging from fractions of a nanometer ( monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ...

s a few tens of nanometers thick on a wax support to demonstrate the potentials of high-performance

solar sail Solar sails (also known as lightsails, light sails, and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large surfaces. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigati ...

s. He was active in space politics, helping the

L5 Society The L5 Society was founded in 1975 by Carolyn Meinel and Keith Henson to promote the space colony ideas of Gerard K. O'Neill. In 1987, the L5 Society merged with the National Space Institute to form the National Space Society. Name The na ...

defeat the

Moon Treaty The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,mass driver A mass driver or electromagnetic catapult is a proposed method of non-rocket spacelaunch which would use a linear motor to Acceleration, accelerate and catapult Payload (air and space craft), payloads up to high speeds. Existing and proposed mass ...

prototypes, Drexler delivered papers at the first three

Space Manufacturing Space manufacturing or In-space manufacturing (ISM in short) is the fabrication, assembly or integration of tangible goods beyond Earth's atmosphere (or more generally, outside a planetary atmosphere), involving the transformation of raw or re ...

conferences at Princeton. The 1977 and 1979 papers were co-authored with

Keith Henson Howard Keith Henson (born 1942) is an American electrical engineer and writer. Henson writes on subjects including space engineering, space law (Moon treaty), memetics, cryonics, evolutionary psychology, and the physical limitations of Transhuma ...

, and patents were issued on both subjects, vapor phase fabrication and space radiators. During the late 1970s, Drexler began to develop ideas about

(MNT). In 1979, he encountered

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is best known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of t ...

's provocative 1959 talk "

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics" was a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at the annual American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959. Feynman considered the possibi ...

". In 1981, Drexler wrote a seminal research article, published by

PNAS ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of S ...

, "Molecular engineering: An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation". This article has continued to be cited, more than 620 times, during the following 35 years. The term "

nano-technology Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing propertie ...

" had been coined by the

Tokyo University of Science , formerly "Science University of Tokyo" or TUS, informally or simply is a private research university located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. History Tokyo University of Science was founded in 1881 as The Tokyo Academy of Physics by 21 graduate ...

professor

Norio Taniguchi was a professor of Tokyo University of Science. He coined the term '' nano-technology'' in 1974 N. Taniguchi, "On the Basic Concept of 'Nano-Technology'," Proc. Intl. Conf. Prod. Eng. Tokyo, Part II, Japan Society of Precision Engineering, 1974 ...

in 1974 to describe the precision manufacture of materials with nanometer tolerances, and Drexler unknowingly used a related term in his 1986 book '' Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology'' to describe what later became known as

(MNT). In that book, he proposed the idea of a nanoscale "assembler" which would be able to build a copy of itself and of other items of arbitrary complexity. He also first published the term "

grey goo Gray goo (also spelled as grey goo) is a hypothetical global catastrophic scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating machines consume all biomass (and perhaps also everything else) on Earth while buil ...

" to describe what might happen if a hypothetical self-replicating molecular assembler went out of control. He has subsequently tried to clarify his concerns about out-of-control self-replicators, and make the case that molecular manufacturing does not require such devices.

Education

Drexler holds three degrees from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

. He received his B.S. in Interdisciplinary Sciences in 1977 and his

M.S. A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medicine ...

in 1979 in Astro/Aerospace Engineering with a master's thesis titled "Design of a High Performance Solar Sail System". In 1991, he earned a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

through the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

(formally, the Media Arts and Sciences Section, School of Architecture and Planning) after the department of

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

refused to approve Drexler's plan of study. His Ph.D. work was the first doctoral degree on the topic of molecular nanotechnology and his thesis, "Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation", was published (with minor editing) as ''Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation'' (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.

Personal life

In 1981, Drexler married

Christine Peterson Christine L. Peterson is an American forecaster, and the co-founder of Foresight Institute. She is credited with suggesting the term "open source" when used in connection with software. Peterson holds a bachelor's degree in chemistry from MIT.< ...

. The marriage ended in 2002. In 2006, Drexler married Rosa Wang, a former

investment banker Investment banking is an advisory-based financial service for institutional investors, corporations, governments, and similar clients. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by unde ...

who works with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public on improving the

social capital Social capital is a concept used in sociology and economics to define networks of relationships which are productive towards advancing the goals of individuals and groups. It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interper ...

markets. Drexler has arranged to be cryonically preserved in the event of

legal death Legal death is the recognition under the law of a particular jurisdiction that a person is no longer alive. In most cases, a doctor's declaration of death (variously called) or the identification of a corpse is a legal requirement for such recogni ...

Reception

Drexler's work on nanotechnology was criticized as naive by

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

winner

Richard Smalley Richard Errett Smalley (June 6, 1943 – October 28, 2005) was an American chemist who was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Astronomy at Rice University. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of ...

in a 2001 ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' article. Smalley first argued that "fat fingers" made MNT impossible. He later argued that nanomachines would have to resemble chemical

enzymes An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as pro ...

more than Drexler's assemblers and could only work in water. Drexler maintained that both were

straw man A straw man fallacy (sometimes written as strawman) is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said ...

arguments, and in the case of enzymes, wrote that "Prof. Klibanov wrote in 1994, ' ... using an enzyme in organic

solvents A solvent (from the Latin '' solvō'', "loosen, untie, solve") is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas, or a supercritical fluid. Water is a solvent for p ...

eliminates several obstacles ... '" Drexler had difficulty in getting Smalley to respond, but in December 2003, Chemical and Engineering news carried a four-part debate.

Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), speech synthesis, text-to-speech synthesis, spee ...

disputes Smalley's arguments. The

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), also known as the National Academies, is a Congressional charter, congressionally chartered organization that serves as the collective scientific national academy of the Uni ...

, in its 2006 review of the

National Nanotechnology Initiative The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a research and development initiative which provides a framework to coordinate nanoscale research and resources among United States federal government agencies and departments. History In the lat ...

, argues that it is difficult to predict the future capabilities of nanotechnology:

In science fiction

Drexler is mentioned in

Neal Stephenson Neal Town Stephenson (born October 31, 1959) is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction. His novels have been categorized as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and baroque. Stephenson's work explores mathemati ...

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

novel ''

The Diamond Age ''The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, set in a future world in wh ...

'' as one of the heroes of a future world where nanotechnology is ubiquitous. In the science fiction novel '' Newton's Wake'' by

Ken MacLeod Kenneth Macrae MacLeod (born 2 August 1954) is a Scottish science fiction writer. His novels ''The Sky Road'' and '' The Night Sessions'' won the BSFA Award. MacLeod's novels have been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, Nebula, Locus ...

, a 'drexler' is a nanotech assembler of pretty much anything that can fit in the volume of the particular machine—from socks to starships. Drexler is also mentioned in the science fiction book ''

Decipher DECIPHER is a web-based resource and database of genomic variation data from analysis of patient DNA. It documents submicroscopic Chromosome abnormality, chromosome abnormalities (Deletion (genetics), microdeletions and Gene duplication, duplic ...

'' by

Stel Pavlou Stelios Grant Pavlou (born 22 November 1970) is a British screenwriter and speculative fiction novelist. He is known for writing the novel ''Decipher'' and the screenplay for the film ''The 51st State''. Personal life Pavlou was born in Kent ...

; his book is mentioned as one of the starting points of nanomachine construction, as well as giving a better understanding of the way carbon 60 was to be applied.

James Rollins James Paul Czajkowski (born August 20, 1961), better known by his pen name of James Rollins, is an American veterinarian and writer of action-adventure/ thriller, mystery, and techno-thriller novels who gave up his veterinary practice in Sacra ...

references Drexler's ''Engines of Creation'' in his novel ''Excavation'', using his theory of a molecular machine in two sections as a possible explanation for the mysterious "Substance Z" in the story. Drexler gets a mention in

Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from "bold oracle" to "publicity hound". Accordin ...

's '' Design for Dying'' in the "Mutation" section, briefly detailing the

8-circuit model of consciousness The eight-circuit model of consciousness is a holistic model originally presented as psychological philosophy (abbreviated "psy-phi") by Timothy Leary in books including ''Neurologic'' (1973) and ''Exo-Psychology'' (1977), later expanded on by ...

(pg. 91). Drexler is mentioned in

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

' ''

Doom Patrol Doom Patrol is a superhero team from DC Comics. The original Doom Patrol first appeared in ''My Greatest Adventure'' #80 (June 1963), and was created by writers Arnold Drake and Bob Haney, along with artist Bruno Premiani. Doom Patrol has appear ...

'' vol. 2, #57 (published July 1992). Drexler is mentioned in Michael Crichton's 2002 novel ''

Prey Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not ki ...

'' in the introduction (pg xii). The Drexler Facility (''ドレクサー機関'') of molecular nanotechnology research in the Japanese

eroge An ''eroge'' (, ''eroge'', or , ''erogē'', ), also called an H-game, is a Japanese genre of erotic video game. The term encompasses a wide variety of Japanese games containing erotic content across multiple genres. The first ''eroge'' were crea ...

visual novels A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...

'' Baldr Sky'' is named after him. The "Assemblers" are its key invention.

Works

* ''

Engines of Creation ''Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology'' is a 1986 molecular nanotechnology book written by K. Eric Drexler with a foreword by Marvin Minsky. An updated version was released in 2007. The book has been translated into Japanese, ...

'' (1986) ** Availabl
online at e-drexler.com
dead link ** Available online in Chinese a
创造的发动机
** Available online in Italian a
MOTORI DI CREAZIONE: L’era prossima della nanotecnologia
* The Canvas of the Night (1990), (ar) Project Solar Sail, ed. Arthur C. Clarke, NAL/Roc () Science Fiction. * ''Unbounding the Future'' (1991; with

and Gayle Pergamit) () ** Available online with free download a
Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution

(1992) ** Availabl
online at nanosyste.ms
** Sample chapters and a table of contents are availabl

** Drexler's doctoral thesis, ''Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation'', an earlier version of the text that became ''Nanosystems'', is availabl
online
* ''Engines of Creation 2.0: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology - Updated and Expanded'', K. Eric Drexler, 647 pages, (February 2007) * ''Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization'', May 7, 2013, * ''Reframing Superintelligence: Comprehensive AI Services as General Intelligence'', K. Eric Drexler, Technical Report #2019-1, Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, 210 pages (2019

* ''Molecular Science and Engineering Platform One'' (MSEP.one), (October 2024),

molecular design software Molecular design software is notable software for molecular modeling, that provides special support for developing molecular models ''de novo''. In contrast to the usual molecular modeling programs, such as for molecular dynamics and quantum chemi ...

and editor,

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

with an

MIT License The MIT License is a permissive software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts very few restrictions on reuse and therefore has high license compatibility. Unl ...

; built on the Godot open-source

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

References

External links

*
Who's Who in the Nanospace
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Drexler, K. Eric 1955 births Living people 21st-century American engineers American nanotechnologists American non-fiction environmental writers American transhumanists Cryonicists MIT School of Engineering alumni MIT School of Architecture and Planning alumni