ENGINES OF CREATION

by K. Eric Drexler ($17.95, 298pp. hdbd., Doubleday 1986) is an extraordinary book about which, I believe, we will hear a lot more in the years to come.

What's the difference between a bronze age ax and a computer on a chip? Nothing terribly fundamental, to Drexler: both are rearrangements of zillions of atoms to do a certain job. But what when man learns to assemble molecules atom by atom, not on the average and in bulk (as in chemistry), but each atom exactly where it is intended to be? Genetic engineering, which splices and alters DNA molecules, is a crude beginning, says Drexler. But molecules can be made into computers: today's registers, whose cells are either in a high or low state (1 or 0) may one day be replaced by molecular chains with atoms here or there. Such molecular protein computers can then be programed to replicate themselves, or to beget other proteins, which can in turn beget dream materials with properties unattainable by today's bulk technologies. But they are perfectly possible with molecular assemblers: by bonding carbon atoms properly, they will produce a fine, flexible diamond fiber with fifty times the strength of the same weight of aluminum.

And that is just a glimpse of the beginning of the tools for the job. Then come the bigger machines assembled atom by atom. There now is a company in Japan that runs the machining section in a manufacturing plant 24 hours a day with only 19 workers on the day shift and none at all at night. It produces 250 machines per month, of which 100 are robots. But such bulk technology, however impressive, must contain both part-making and part-assembling machinery. Not so with molecular machinery: it only assembles, for its parts are atoms, and they come ready-made.

Then comes a panorama of the shape of things to come; not completely unlimited, but utterly fascinating: thinking machines, building machines, machines for transport to outer space and survival there, healing machines, drugs to eradicate all disease, drugs to eliminate aging, and, yes, machinery of destruction, too.

Make no mistake, this is not a science fiction book. It is a cold-blooded estimate, based on hard science, of what is achievable and what is desirable. As it leaves the hard sciences and goes into questions of how to prepare society for the great revolution, I very often find myself in disagreement with the author; but I heartily recommend this book to readers for its importance, its clear thinking, and its fresh air for a world stifled by the stench of apocalyptic pseudoscience.