Subject: "Nanosystems" debunked?

From: Eugene Leitl <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 23:13:56 +0200 (MET DST)

Dear CCLers,

currently, I am rereading "Nanosystems" by Erik K. Drexler (Wiley, 1992).
For those who are unaware of this book, a quick summary. E. K. Drexler
proposes a new class of nanoscale engines capable of autoreplication,
built from diamondoids (carbon and otherwise) and operating in hard vacuum
by means of (hitherto unprecedented) machine-phase chemistry, which are
basically downscaled STM manipulators in nanolithography mode (deploying
reactive carbon moieties atom-by-atom at roughly 1*10^6 rate). 

Though a quick perusal of this book by a chemist or molecular biologist
may appear it to be dire nonsense, I am no longer certain it is thus
simple. Thus I'm asking for assistance in this forum, as, lacking
experimental data, Drexler arguments a great deal from computer runs, as
MM2, etc. 

Basically, there are two distinct domains in the book: the more or less
classical chemistry at the tool tip, and large-scale dynamics of
nontrivial diamondoid structures of several 10^6 atoms. 

If anybody has read the book: can simulations at such scales generate any 
reliable data whatsoever? From a computational chemist point of view, is 
Drexler at all talking sense?

Thanks muchly,
Eugene Leitl