Yesterday I had the privilege of appearing on a TV program with Dr Vijoleta
Braach-Maksvytis, a (gasp!) practising nanotechnologist. This program, the
second episode of a 13-part series called AFTER SHOCK (they'd played with
the idea of titling it THE SPIKE) will be broadcast on May 10 in Oz on the
Australian ABC. Although Vijoleta [VEE-uh-letter] was dubious about the
views of Drexler and Merkle, going so far as to claim that their physics is
wrong (a charge brought against them repeatedly for a decade and half now
but never, I think, substantiated), she was enormously open-minded about
the prospects for drastic change implicit in emergent technologies at that
scale. Here's a piece from the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper about Dr
Braach-Maksvytis and her work:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0012/11/features/features1.html
and in
http://it.mycareer.com.au/hardware/20001128/A36081-2000Nov24.html
she makes the point that Australian nano research, while lacking funding
(especially when contrasted with the half billion US National Initiative),
could serve as a guide to US efforts and funding `much of which will be
spent to mimic Australia's CSIRO multi-disciplinary approach', the approach
that allowed her and her colleagues to develop the nano sensor some years ago.
Damien Broderick
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