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The following are some famous environmental quotes centered on the theme of nanotechnology. If you would like to go to the online environmental forum Click Here.
“As an emerging science in its infancy, nanotechnology promises the nano-scale manufacture of materials and machines made to atomic specifications.
The impact of nanotechnology on our way of life is widely believed to reach profound and hitherto unimagined levels in the coming decades. Proposed changes include clean abundant energy, pollution-free and inexpensive production of superior defect-free materials, complete environmental restoration and cleanup, safe and affordable space travel and colonization, and quantum leaps in medicine leading to perfect health and immortality. As a result of these advances, we anticipate the obsolescence of nearly all of today's industrial and economic processes by the first half of the new century, leading to global and radical changes in life style, finance, law, and politics.”
- Behfar Bastani and Dennis Fernandez
“In the short and mid term, failing to keep up with other nations in the research or adoption of nanotechnology has obvious negative consequences for an economy, both domestically and globally as world markets are increasingly dependent on each other. As quickly as technology is advancing, following Moore's Law, it will be an extraordinary challenge for any nation (or ethics) to catch up, if they fall too far behind. Think of the nations that missed the previous Industrial Revolution in the last century or even the Internet bandwagon today.”
- Patrick Lin
“Humankind is heading inexorably into an age of sweeping and unpredictable change. These changes are likely to happen sooner and be greater in scope than most people are able to grasp. Working to understand the potential of molecular manufacturing and to help plan for the disruptive changes it will bring about is the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.”
- Rocky Rawstern
“I had been impressed by the fact that biological systems were based on molecular machines and that we were learning to design and build these sorts of things.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Currently, Al particles with native oxide coatings are widely used in explosives, propellants, and thermites to enhance performance. The use of nanoparticles and/or clusters would significantly increase the surface to volume ratios, and could greatly improve performance through tailored energy release and more efficient combustion.”
- Dr. Victor Bellitto
“Molecular manufacturing is going to be the mother of all disruptions, and if we manage to get through this century with our civilization intact, CRN's work will bear much of the credit.”
- Jamais Cascio
“Many near-term military applications will see benefits from reducing the high lifecycle cost of equipment operations and maintenance through nanotechnology-based coatings and composite materials, sensors and diagnostic devices, miniature systems and actuators on a chip, and an increased use of commercial off the shelf technology products that are made with nanotechnology and microsystems.”
- Neil Gordon
“Now that the natural scientists are taking this book seriously, it is high time that social scientists start to do so. The socio-economic and political changes that the nanotechnological revolution will usher in are difficult to imagine, but I think we had better start doing some serious thinking about them.”
- Don Lavoie, David H. and Charles G. Koch
“Northern California already possesses the necessary resources to position the region as a leader in nanotechnology, and we must ensure that qualified workers in the region are prepared to fill the jobs that will accompany the industry's anticipated boom.”
- Mike Honda
“Nanotechnology is manufacturing with atoms.”
- William Powell
“The frontier of nanotechnology moves closer each day as computer chips grow more dense with circuits and as fields like laser chemistry and polymer engineering grow from research oddities to a new source of patents and products. History will record that the vision of the nano-frontier began with Engines of Creation.”
- Bart Kosko
“Engines of Creation is that rarest of things, a technically sophisticated book that is still accessible to general readers. The Foresight Institute is distinguished from most other technology-related think tanks by its taking seriously - before the fact - the ethical and social ramifications of new technology.”
- Glenn Harlan Reynolds
“After realizing that we would eventually be able to build molecular machines that could arrange atoms to form virtually any pattern that we wanted, I saw that an awful lot of consequences followed from that.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“If technology is the engine of change, then nanotechnology is the fuel for humanity's future. Like any fuel, we must understand its usable capacity for doing work and apply that knowledge toward addressing humanity's needs. This a two-fold strategic process. The Center for Responsible Technology has the brainpower to do it.”
- Natasha Vita-More
“You can find academic and industrial groups doing some relevant work, but there isn't a focus on building complex molecular systems. In that respect, Japan is first, Europe is second, and we're third.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is fulfilling a transcendental role in the future of humanity. If it did not exist, it would have to be created. Nanotechnology can lead us to Heaven or Hell, and we have to be aware of the opportunities and threats.”
- José Luis Cordeiro
“While doing that I'd been following a variety of fields in science and technology, including the work in molecular biology, genetic engineering, and so forth.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“With nanotechnology we'll be able to build surgical tools that are molecular, both in their size and in their precision. For the first time we'll be able to intervene at the scale where the damage actually occurs and to reverse that injury.”
- Dr. Ralph Merkle
“On the molecular scale, you find it’s reasonable to have a machine that does a million steps per second, a mechanical system that works at computer speeds.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“We know the basic principles of molecular machinery will work because they do work.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Nanotechnology isn't a fad, it's a scientific voyage, and enthusiasm for what's ahead is key.”
- Michael L. Rourke
“Nanotechnology will, once it gets under way, depend on the tools we have then and our ability to use them, and not on the steps that got us there.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“In meeting after meeting over three days in Washington, DC, it became apparent that the federal government clearly grasps the almost limitless potential of nanotechnology to transform business and society, improving quality of life while creating new educational and employment opportunities. That America currently leads the world in nanotech development is testimony to the tremendous bi-partisan support we have received in DC. We applaud our government leaders for their vision and action, and although there is considerable work ahead to maintain our global leadership, the reception we received on this Policy Tour is proof positive that we have a true partner in the US government.”
- Sean Murdock
“In thinking about nanotechnology today, what's most important is understanding where it leads, what nanotechnology will look like after we reach the assembler breakthrough.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Most nanotechnology-based products pose little chance for public exposure and therefore pose little risk to health or the environment. That's because most uses are in composites in which the nanoparticles are encased in a product, such as golf clubs or car bumpers, or in nanoscale structures that are part of larger devices such as electronic circuits.”
- E. Clayton Teague
“Nanotechnology is a promissory note on the future. As a discipline, it provokes our creativity in uniquely interdisciplinary ways. It asks us to imagine, to dream, and to dare.”
- John Kao
“Thanks to the pioneering work of the Foresight Institute, real progress is being made in nanotechnology, with tremendous promise for improving our lives in the 21st century.”
- Robert W. Poole
“We believe that nanotech is the next great technology wave, the nexus of scientific innovation that revolutionizes most industries and indirectly affects the fabric of society. Historians will look back on the upcoming epoch with no less portent than the Industrial Revolution.”
- Steve Jurvetson
“Just as silicon transistors replaced old vacuum tube technology and enabled the electronic age, carbon nanotube devices could open a new era of electronics.”
- Margaret Blohm
“Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) will be an extremely flexible manufacturing technology, able to produce a broad array of weapons. It will be fast, cheap, self-contained, and automated. This means that it will allow very rapid design of new weapons, and even more rapid deployment. Our technical research has shown that once a basic limited MNT capability is developed, advanced manufacturing may be only a few months away. It will be a huge force multiplier - enough to make whoever controls it a world superpower.”
- Chris Phoenix