>Perhaps, but I hazard that people will be trying to change the shape of
>a single atom's wave function any day now, if they aren't already. And
>that they will succeed well before the first molecular assembler is built.
I guess I'm making a safe bet ... I just noticed that there's a report in the May Scientific American about how Philip Bucksbaum at the University of Michigan *has* changed atoms' wave functions already, although his current technique only works on 10^6 atoms at a time.
See http://www.sciam.com/1999/0599issue/0599techbus2.html
lubkin@unreasonable.com