What is molecular manufacturing?
The term molecular manufacturing has been associated with all sorts of futuristic stuff, from bloodstream robots to gray goo to tabletop factories that can make a new factory in a few hours. This can make it hard for people who want to understand the field to know exactly what’s being claimed and studied. This essay explains what the term originally meant, why the approach is thought to be powerful enough to create a field around, why so many futuristic ideas are associated with it, and why some of those ideas are more plausible than they may seem. Original Definition Eric Drexler defined the term molecular manufacturing in his 1992 technical work Nanosystems. His definition used some other terms that need to be considered first. Mechanochemistry In this volume, the chemistry of processes in which mechanical systems operating with atomic-scale precision either guide, drive, or are driven by chemical transformations. In other words, mechanochemistry is the direct, mechanical control of
