Engines of creation
by K. Eric Drexler · first published 1986
36% recommend58% neutral6% critical
Why HN recommends it
Popular introduction to molecular nanotechnology that coined the term and extrapolates its possibilities and risks; readers reread it, and a chapter on hypertext and one on cryonics stand out. Free online.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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If you don't know how much nanotechnology will change the world go read Eric Drexlers classic: "engines of creation". It's available online here: http://www.e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.h... It blew my mind when I read it ten years ago.
on “Nokia and University of Cambridge launch the Morph - a nanotechnology concept device ” ↗Ted Nelson was the founder, yes. He was inspired by Drexler, who like certain later transhumanists did human rationality on the side. Do none still remember "Engines of Creation"? It had a whole chapter on hypertext.
on “All-time greatest failed Internet startup” ↗I can recommend Engines of Creation: 1.0 summary: http://web.mit.edu/cortiz/www/3.052/3.052CourseReader/3_Engi... 1.0: http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.html 2.0: https://web.archive.org/web/20140810022659/http://www1.appst...
on “AlphaFold: Using AI for scientific discovery” ↗…http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq05.html#met - http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/faq07.html#overpopulation To those interested in more detail, I recommend the Alcor FAQ (http://www.alcor.org/FAQs/), Chapter 9 of Engines of Creation (http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Chapter_9.html), and the World Transhumanist Association FAQ (http://www.transhumanism.org/resources/faq.html; search for the question "What is cryonics? Isn’t the…
on “You Only Live Twice” ↗<ACHTUNG> Vaporware Ahead! </ACHTUNG> But, I'll support the spirit/thought anyway. Relevant: Free e-book of Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler, http://e-drexler.com/d/06/00/EOC/EOC_Table_of_Contents.html (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_of_Creation)
on “The Product Bay (Pirate Bay for personal fabrication)” ↗…molecular manufacturing, computing and construction looms. The field of nanotechnology will pioneer these breakthroughs over the next few decades. For further reading I would recommend Drexler's seminal "Engines of Creation" (non-fictive) alongside Stephenson's "Diamond Age" (fictive/scifi).
on “Welcome to The Matrix” ↗…but still helpful technical companion: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Accelerando_Technical_Companio... Then you'll want to read up in general on molecular nanotechnology. K. Eric Drexler has updated Engines of Creation, and its also free online: http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=503 So if we get visited by "aliens" there's an even chance it will be some runaway Von Neumann replicator seeds shot out from…
on “Why We'll Never Meet Aliens” ↗There's also the classic of Eric Drexler, who coined the very term "nanotechnology", "Engines of Creation". I highly recommend the read. It's very good at extrapolating possibilities and issues, though I personally don't agree with the conclusions about 'defense against nanotech attacks' outpacing the offensive…
on “Nobody’s Talking About Nanotech Anymore” ↗…Tough to call. I got a lot out of Deep Work by Cal Newport, The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday, How To Win At The Sport Of Business by Mark Cuban, Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, and The Engines of Creation by Eric Drexler, as well as the three Grant Cardone books I read: The 10x Rule, Sell or Be Sold and Be Obsessed or Be Average. Fiction: I'll go with The Whispering Room by Dean Koontz. A Wild Sheep…
on “Ask HN: What is the best book you read on 2017?” ↗Popular treatment: Engines of Creation, Drexler 1986. There are newer options, but this is basically the beginning of post-Feynman Nanotechnology. Version 2.0 (2007) of the book is a free PDF: https://web.archive.org/web/20140810022659/http://www1.appst...
on “To make the perfect mirror, physicists confront the mystery of glass” ↗K. Eric Drexler - Engines of Creation https://www.amazon.com/Engines-Creation-Nanotechnology-Libra... Randomly chose this off the bookshelf at a Borders in 1990 or so...turned out to be the most exciting book I've ever read. Then Terminator…
on “Scientists build army of a million microrobots that fit inside hypodermic needle” ↗…effects involved at the molecular scale are much different. However, K. Eric Drexler, father of the field of molecular nanotechnology, has done some theoretical work to show that it's feasible in his book "Engines of Creation". A newly revised version of it is available for free as an eBook: http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=503 A more technically oriented book is "Nanosystems": http://www.amazon.com/Nanosystems-Molecular-Machinery-Manufa...
on “Legos that build legos (vid)” ↗Engines of Creation might be the book for you: http://xaonon.dyndns.org/misc/engines_of_creation.pdf
on “AI made from a sheet of glass can recognise numbers just by looking” ↗I have read through "Engines of Creation" (the book where this phrase was coined) three or four times and learn something new with each reading. I've also bought three copies because I keep giving it away (last time to a friend who became CEO…
on “Gray Goo” ↗Watching the science establishment block almost all progress in "real" Drexler style nanotechnology for a quarter century after the publication of Engines of Creation.
on “Who killed the futurist in you? School or you?” ↗