Size
Does
Matter

The sun rises in the 21^st century. You yawn and blink as the windows start to appear, and go downstairs for breakfast with your partner, leaving the bed to turn itself into a pool table. You just had one of those nightmares about having to work to earn money again, and resolve to adjust the dream filter after breakfast.

Now some of you may be thinking "Time to cut down on the dose, bro." but it isn't as far-fetched as it seems. There are things afoot about which most people know or understand very little. Time for enlightenment.

Matter is made of atoms, we all know that. We also know that you can build machines out of matter, and that some of them can be quite small. The buzzword of the new millennium is going to be "MEMS" and it stands for Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems, which in English means little electrical machines. They're here already, forming the sensors for car airbags and the displays for expensive projection screens. The pretty pictures of MEMS motors and other gadgets above by Professor Henry Guckel and the University of Wisconsin are all less than 1 mm long and work; much smaller devices now exist.

You might have seen little gearwheels and motors like those whizzing around under a microscope on some TV news fill-ins. That's a promising new technology, but it opens a window to much more powerful stuff; as it gets smaller and smaller.

The thing is, how small can you get? Matter, we recall from those days of school and rugby, is composed of atoms and Sir Earnest Rutherford split 'em once. Generally though, atoms stay intact and stick to one another to make things called molecules (this may have been mentioned while you slept or made paper planes). All atoms of one thing are exactly the same, so if you join three atoms of gold together they'll always form exactly the same shape.

Those who were actually paying attention in class and liking it have gone on to make molecules in funny shapes, a bit like that kiddie's toy Konnex or whatever it's called. They've made gears, wheels, tubes, even tiny electronic circuits and the computer software to design these things is free. Years ago the boffins invented a "microscope" called an AFM that can feel atoms or molecules, and even poke them around. Some of these fancy molecules and techniques are being used to build more delicate tools that can prod even more precisely, which makes better tools, which make ...

Eventually, instead of building new drugs and DNA with these toys like they do now, someone is going to build little machines out of the construction kit of parts, out of molecules ten thousand times smaller that the components on a silicon chip. A simple, powered arm joint has already been built, but it has no hand and no controls. Yet. All this has happened in the last decade, so expect much more rapid progress over the next decade. This is called "nanotechnology" and you will find this word being spoon-fed to you over the next couple of years to get you used to the concept. Its impact on your life will be nothing short of magical.

The ultimate goal, and where it gets scary, is that it will be possible to build a little machine that - given enough spare parts - can build a copy of itself on command. You only need to build one, and Pop! You've as many as you need the next morning. We're designing the machines already, even though we can't build them yet. A "Stewart Platform" (invented by guess who) is on the left, while Mr. Eric Drexler's design is on the right. Drexler is a big name in nanotechnology.

Now these machines are going to be used to build better ones, and fairly soon you'll have little machines that can build anything you feel like, including themselves and their solar power supplies. Science fiction writers call them "replicators", nanotechnology scientists call then "universal assemblers". I think the writers have the best idea. Let's replicate them a glass of champagne and a cigar; cheers guys!

Want a friend to join in the fun? No problem; get your pile of replicators to copy itself and give them one. No charge. I mean, you have a machine that can make anything you want, right? What do you need the money for? If you insist, you friend can now make you as much as you want. Powered by sunlight and using the pollution in the air we breath to build with, these machines will actually reduce pollution and clean up the environment while they work. They won't make pollution because they don't need to. The greenest device ever.

With these replicators, you - and anyone else you give some to - have the power to feed yourself, build yourself houses and build your own  transport. Things never dreamed of before like beds that morph into pool tables, or a city that builds itself from a tiny seed. Materials that can look normal but be built of billions of active machines, ready to change into something else faster that you can say Mighty Morphin Power Whatnots.  Imagine, you can pretty much do anything you feel like probably with free plans downloaded from the internet - owning a super-powerful computer is not going to be a problem. No government can stop you or tax you now. Or you might just sneak off to Africa and make fame if not fortune distributing copies of the machine to the poor.

So that's the world saved, and taxes and global poverty taken care of. What about death? Well, it's a fair bet that with many biologists being interested in these devices already, making little machines that stop us from keeling over at our allotted four score years and ten will be something very much on their minds. They have a personal interest, the tool for the job and no other job to worry about. After a trip to Fiji on their free, newly-constructed, nanotechnological yacht they might settle down and make us all immortal.

If the Earth gets crowded, build yourself a spaceship and leave. Even a planet as beautiful as ours could get boring after a few thousand years of luxury.

Wishing you a prosperous and fantastic new millennium,

Vik :v)