Not That Much Room? Nanotechnology, Networks and the Politics of Dancing Ian Kerr* and Goldie Bassi** I. At the Bottom ‘There’s plenty of room at the bottom.’ But there’s not that much room.1 In his well known 2001 article in Scientific American, Nobel chemist Richard Smalley offered the above rejoinder to the late Nobel physicist Richard Feynman and to the molecular nanotechnologists that Feynman inspired over the last several decades.2 Smalley’s agenda in that short article was brutally clear. His aim was to draw a laser bright distinction between two very different conceptions of nanotech- nology. Smalley made it painfully obvious that not all nanotechnologists aim to create nanobots — the autonomous self-replicating molecular assemblers that have been receiving so much bad press since the bong of the new millennium.3 In fact, Smalley tried to demonstrate that the actual construction of such devices is impossible. In order to fully appreciate the significance of Smalley’s rejoinder, it is first necessary to get to the bottom of Feynman’s original vision, which he articulated in his famous 1959 address to the American Physical Society titled, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.”4 * Ian Kerr is Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa (
[email protected]). This article stems from a broader body of interdisciplinary work on the human- machine interface. The author extends his gratitude to the Canada Research Chair program and the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy for their generous contributions to the funding of this project.