zslastman comments on Is Molecular Nanotechnology "Scientific"? - Less Wrong

22 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 20 August 2007 04:11AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (51)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: zslastman 26 April 2013 07:34:51PM *  1 point [-]

Existing molecular nanomachines (proteins) tend to be extremely unreliable. They work, but only on average. Someone recently issued a challenge to prove that Quantum computers are thermodynamically impossible So I'm wondering if anyone has done serious work with statistical mechanics, trying to figure out if the kind of nanotechnology so enthusiastically proposed in "engines of creation" runs afoul of more subtle laws around reversibility or thermal noise.