Horizon TV - Richard Dawkins TV - Ralph Merkle - The Strange New World of Nanoscience 2010 -
The is the story behind the most remarkable discovery. His breakthrough seemed so revolutionary it could have created an extraordinary new world ... By the brilliant mind of Hendrik Schon. Horizon: The Dark Secret of Hendrik Schon, BBC 2004
So great is this fear of the Grey Goo that eminent figures around the world such as Prince Charles have raised concerns about it. ibid.
Hendrik Schon was one of the greatest minds Physics had seen for years ... And his breakthroughs were reflected by a prolific rate of publishing. ibid.
Moore’s law relates to the one thing that has powered our progress and defined our age. Moore’s law is the law that governs the silicon chip. One of the greatest triggers of economic progress ever. ibid.
It seems there is a limit to how small silicon can go before it breaks down. ibid.
Schon believed that the answer may not lie with silicon but rather something totally different: a transistor made from organic molecules – molecules based on carbon. ibid.
Schon took his findings to the most prestigious scientific journal of them all – Nature. His paper caused a sensation. ibid.
Nanotechnology is the ability to manipulate matter at the scale of atoms and molecules. It is a science in its infancy. ibid.
One day scientists could manipulate molecules to create tiny computers that will fuse with our body. ibid.
But there could be another use for Nanotechnology ... War would be fought using nanobots. ibid.
And then of course there is grey goo. Creating nanobots is one thing. But can we be sure that we can control them? ibid.
The results just didn’t make sense. Two totally different experiments with exactly the same results was impossible. But that’s what Schon’s papers reported. ibid.
For months now rumours were circulating about Schon’s work. Many of his claims just could not be repeated in the lab by others. ibid.
The investigation revealed the truth: the investigation established that Schon had behaved recklessly and that he had deliberately fabricated some data. ibid.
Many of his greatest triumphs had been based on fabricated data. It was a shocking revelation. ibid.
Bell fired Schon. ibid.
A new class of computers like nothing else the world has ever seen – the Quantum Computer. Horizon: What is Reality? BBC 2011
It’s a rather unlikely group of scientists. They’re experts in codes and code-breaking. Leading researchers in the baffling world of quantum physics. And they’ve built the most advanced computer in the universe. And together they are taking on one common enemy: hackers. Horizon: Defeating the Hackers, narrator Rupert Penry-Jones & Dr Franco Wong et al, BBC 2013 *****
The extent of government eavesdropping has been revealed. ibid.
No-one’s quite sure who’s hacking who. ibid.
Quantum mechanics – weird: ‘With a single atom … where anything is starts to break down … Things can be in many places at the same time.’ ibid.
The processor … The quantum chip considers every possible solution all at the same time. ibid.
In the weird world of the very small, things can be in more than one place at once. But all that changes at the moment you actually look and measure where something is. It’s known as the Observer Effect. ibid.
A message: a one or a zero. It means if you are sending a quantum message, you can tell if someone else is observing. If there is an eavesdropper on the line. ibid.
Infection is spreading all across the world. ibid.
Nanotechnology, graphine: one atom thick ... conductive. Tomorrow’s World: A Horizon Special, BBC 2013
Nanotechnology holds out the prospect of building surgical instruments small enough to be on the same scale as the cells. Dr Richard Dawkins, lecture 4, ‘The Ultraviolet Garden’
Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We’ll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today. Ralph Merkle
What is nano? A man’s beard grows five nanometres every second … It’s recently that we’ve actually been able to see down to the nano scale. The Strange New World of Nanoscience aka Nano You, short 17:26, narrator Stephen Fry, 2010
To explore the nano scale, we use very powerful machines called electron microscopes. ibid.
Light also behaves differently as you head down to the nano scale. ibid.
You are already a masterpiece of molecular nano technology. ibid.