ABSTRACT
A term popularised by K. Eric Drexler's highly influential work of speculative nonfiction Engines of Creation (1987), often abbreviated to "nanotech" and readily giving rise to such derivatives as "nanoware" and "nanobots" (nanotechnological robots). Engines of Creation summarised a train of thought that Drexler had first set in motion in "Molecular Engineering: An Approach to the Development of General Capabilities for Molecular Manipulation" (1981), although similar ideas had previously been broached in Richard Feynman's essay "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" (1961, in H. D. Gilbert's Miniaturization). Nanotechnology is a drastic extrapolation of the notion of technological miniaturisation, proposing the development and use of extremely tiny machines capable of manipulating individual atoms and molecules, simulating and vastly extending the "natural molecular technologies" used by living cells to manufacture proteins, organs, and whole bodies.
