The Feynman program for a Billion Lathes (viewable/downloadable .pdf) - see page 5

LFLondon · Jun 22, 2017

Physicist Richard Feynman's 1959 essay "Plenty of Room at the Bottom", about the possibilities of miniaturizing technology.
The Feynman program for a Billion Lathes [pDF, jump to page 5 for the impatient].
http://www.pa.msu.edu/~yang/RFeynman_plentySpace.pdf

Scottl · Jun 22, 2017

Umm, yes, he made some interesting predictions but the part about the tiny lathes means ?????.

Not sure what the intent of your post is.

Micro machines already exist, and they are made with integrated circuit fabrication technology, not tiny lathes. His swallowable surgeons already exist as catheter type devices that are inserted, not swallowed. Plenty of other examples where he, like most futurists, missed the mark rather widely.

LFLondon · Jun 22, 2017

It was out of date but interesting to read how he thought about working with metal.
He may have spent some time in physics department machine shops :-)
I had a friend who ran two of those.

Scottl · Jun 22, 2017

LFLondon said:
It was out of date but interesting to read how he thinks about working with metal. Maybe too OT to be useful.

One thing I noticed was that he seemed to think miniature mechanical components would be required to miniaturize a computer. As I recall the original computers used relays so it is understandable he might think that. Even the original Star Trek series has computers that make clicking sounds while calculating.

A lot of what we have today no one seemed to have imagined back in the 50s. I have seen more than one old sci-fi movie where they had some elaborate schemes for generating electricity on spacecraft in the days before solar cells.

steve45 · Jun 22, 2017

I love Richard Feynman! He was a brilliant physicist and teacher. He served on the Manhattan Project, he was the one that determined the cause of the Challenger explosion and testified before Congress about it, he even had a television show decades ago trying to interest young people in the sciences. A practical joker and a bongo player, he made learning fun!

ferretlegger · Jun 22, 2017

I had the privilege of seeing Feynman speak, at the University of California in Santa Barbara. The hall was so packed that there was barely room to move. He spoke for an hour about his experiences in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, and many other scientific issues. You could have heard a pin drop, except when everyone was laughing their heads off. He could easily have made millions as a stand-up comedian. He was an astounding speaker. He had everyone in the palm of his hand. It was the first time I had experienced real charisma. My brother once met Bill Clinton and had a similar experience- when he entered the room there was a sea change in the atmosphere.

Feynman was indeed a genius. Like many physics grad students, I tried to understand his amazing "Lectures on Physics" transcriptions of a course he gave to sophomores at Cal Tech. hahahaha! The insight and approach he brought to bear on physics problems reduced even the most gifted students to tears. He would take enormously difficult topics and blast through them using minimal math and mind-bending clarity of thought. It was, to say the least, a humbling thing to follow in his mental footsteps in those great books.

My experience listening to him speak that day remains one of the great and most influential experiences of my life. There are some videos of Feynman speaking on YouTube. The first is the actual lecture I attended in 1975.

Richard Feynman Lecture -- "Los Alamos From Below" - YouTube

Here are another few for interested folks:

Feynman: Mathematicians versus Physicists - YouTube

Richard Feynman - Problem Solving - YouTube

All the best,
Michael

jim rozen · Jun 22, 2017

Honestly Feynman could be a bit of a jerk. Such is the perogative of smart people.

The talk in question (room at the bottom) sparked an entire field of endeavor, namely
quantum computation - exploiting the quanum mechanical nature of matter to build
a better computer.

LFLondon · Jun 22, 2017

ferretlegger writes:

"It was, to say the least, a humbling thing to follow in his mental footsteps in those great books."

That is inspiring in itself and a real challenge for anyone to take up. Thanks for posting about Feynman, it was delightful.
Think about our having a dozen more Feynmans now in these times, given funding and access to max out their potential,
unlike Galileo and Mozart.

I watched an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson on TV recently and was spellbound. He has some of the skills of Feynman without a doubt; the ability to
draw you into complex concepts and put you on a rollercoaster of enlightenment about the mysteries of the Universe (or multiple ones). The interview had to do with his new book, Astrophysics for People In a Hurry. Here's more about him and his works: Neil deGrassi Tyson books - Google Search

steve45 · Jun 22, 2017

I've read 4 or 5 of Feynman's books and really enjoyed them. My wife bought me his Lectures On Physics series of books and I got about 2/3 of the way through the first one. Way over my head!

Greeno · Jun 23, 2017

steve45 said:
My wife bought me his Lectures On Physics series of books and I got about 2/3 of the way through the first one. Way over my head!

Try the first lecture in Volume 2. He creates the whole of mathematics from first principles in one lecture. Not much time wasted!

Regards,
Jim

Mikel Levy · Jun 26, 2017

LFLondon said:
It was out of date but interesting to read how he thought about working with metal.
He may have spent some time in physics department machine shops :-)
I had a friend who ran two of those.

As an aside, I also had a friend who supervised two physics department machine shops. His name was Fred Klein. That wasn't by any chance the friend you referred to?

---Mike

LFLondon · Jun 26, 2017

Mikel Levy said:
As an aside, I also had a friend who supervised two physics department machine shops. His name was Fred Klein. That wasn't by any chance the friend you referred to?

---Mike

No, he was Edward McKnight, from Chapel Hill, NC, math and physics education at UNC-CH, went to work for the UNC Physics Department Machine Shop where he received complete training under Nestore DiCostanzo. He later ran the department shop at a university in Florida then one in Texas. He was the real deal, old school, could rebuild all the machines in his shop. Sadly, RIP.

steve45 · Jun 27, 2017

Greeno said:
Try the first lecture in Volume 2. He creates the whole of mathematics from first principles in one lecture. Not much time wasted!

Regards,
Jim

I'll take a look at it.

DDoug · Jun 27, 2017

LFLondon said:
Think about our having a dozen more Feynmans now in these times, given funding and access to max out their potential,
unlike Galileo and Mozart.

Why don't you go fund it yourself ?

Me, I'd like my "forced to pay" taxes to be spent on fighting crime, cancer, etc.

LFLondon · Jun 27, 2017

digger doug said:
Why don't you go fund it yourself ?

Me, I'd like my "forced to pay" taxes to be spent on fighting crime, cancer, etc.

I had in mind all those unknown geniuses lacking the means to gain a proper education and thus access to a career to max out their potential who would benefit from foundation money not taxes.

DDoug · Jun 27, 2017

LFLondon said:
I had in mind all those unknown geniuses lacking the means to gain a proper education and thus access to a career to max out their potential who would benefit from foundation money not taxes.

You didn't specify "Foundation Money" and Feynman was on the government teet,
as well as Neil degrassi, and all he does is sell the idea we need to spend more of my money.

Liberals are really good at spending someone else's money.

In a true Democracy, my 1040 form would have a section on where I want my money
to be spent, and how much, I would determine.

jim rozen · Jun 28, 2017

digger doug said:
You didn't specify "Foundation Money" and Feynman was on the government teet,
as well as Neil degrassi, and all he does is sell the idea we need to spend more of my money.

Liberals are really good at spending someone else's money.

In a true Democracy, my 1040 form would have a section on where I want my money
to be spent, and how much, I would determine.

Agree 100 percent. I wanted to opt-out of funding the war in Iraq. So sad, too bad. Same for you. You don't
get a line item veto any more than I get one. Liberals are good at this? Hah, pikers. To REALLY spend some cash
you need to be a wing-nut republican neo-consevative PNAC asshole. Then the trillions add up.

Getting back to reality here, Feynman's legacy, involving quantum mechanics for computing, is very much alive and well.
Much of it is indeed funded by IARPA, which is to say your tax dollars. To be fair there's also a huge amount of private
money buying advances in quantum computation as well.

Some of it is coming from my employer. Some of it is private venture capital. But wake up and realize that the government
does not simply fire bundles of cash out into the streets for any random science person to gather up. It's a pretty involved
process to even be considered for funding on a project like the one RF proposed.

What's going on, what's being funded, private and public?

Rigetti

Quantum Computing - IBM Q - US

The short answer is, the dozens of visionary projects, in all areas of science, are being funding right now. Physics, Biology, Engineering.
This is world-wide right now. Nations realize that you move forward, or you get left behind.

steve45 · Jun 28, 2017

digger doug said:
You didn't specify "Foundation Money" and Feynman was on the government teet,
as well as Neil degrassi, and all he does is sell the idea we need to spend more of my money.

Liberals are really good at spending someone else's money.

In a true Democracy, my 1040 form would have a section on where I want my money
to be spent, and how much, I would determine.

But, we don't live in a democracy (U.S.), we live in a Republic. In a true democracy, we would all vote on how to spend your money.

LFLondon · Jun 29, 2017

digger doug said:
(1) You didn't specify "Foundation Money" and (2) Feynman was on the government teet,
as well as Neil degrassi, and all he does is sell the idea we need to spend more of my money.

(3) Liberals are really good at spending someone else's money.

(4) In a true Democracy, my 1040 form would have a section on where I want my money
to be spent, and how much, I would determine.

(1) I didn't think it would be necessary; thought that some people would be enthused enough about a money-to-jumpstart-geniuses project that funding it would be easy. It just makes sense. Of course it would have to come from donations but the payback, as I see it, would be great.

(2) I can think of worse ways for our government to spend taxes. With Feynman and Tyson there were/are considerable benefits for the country. For the present, Tyson is really good at what he does. At least he is guiding people toward worthwhile pursuits, like reading a book instead of watching TV.

(3) Isn't that because liberals have cornered the market on good ideas? I mean, they know what's best for us, right? The leftists are a bunch of blood suckers and talk about narrow one track minds.........

(4) That's a good plan. Let them put your wishlist into a citizen database and actually consult that when proposing and discussing bills in congress.

LFLondon · Jun 29, 2017

jim rozen said:
Getting back to reality here, Feynman's legacy, involving quantum mechanics for computing, is very much alive and well.
Much of it is indeed funded by IARPA, which is to say your tax dollars. To be fair there's also a huge amount of private
money buying advances in quantum computation as well.

Some of it is coming from my employer. Some of it is private venture capital. But wake up and realize that the government
does not simply fire bundles of cash out into the streets for any random science person to gather up. It's a pretty involved
process to even be considered for funding on a project like the one RF proposed.

What's going on, what's being funded, private and public?

Rigetti

Quantum Computing - IBM Q - US

The short answer is, the dozens of visionary projects, in all areas of science, are being funding right now. Physics, Biology, Engineering.
This is world-wide right now. Nations realize that you move forward, or you get left behind.

That is absolutely amazing. Take this mind bending scenario for example:

Quantum Computing - IBM Q - US
"IBM Q is an industry-first initiative to build commercially available universal quantum computers for business and science. While technologies like AI can find patterns buried in vast amounts of existing data, quantum computers will deliver solutions to important problems where patterns cannot be found and the number of possibilities that you need to explore to get to the answer are too enormous ever to be processed by classical computers. We invite you join us in exploring what might be possible with this new and vastly different approach to computing."

Talk about science fiction.........the possibilities for technological advancement in industry and the sciences are mind boggling. The future is now.

Taxes also funded the discovery and development of Q Carbon at NCSU Raleigh, Materials Science Lab. The office of the man running this project has more books and papers packed into his office than in any place I have ever seen. Maybe the video about this news can be viewed at the WUNC-TV Scitech Now show website.
Q Carbon will eventually provide material for machining cutting inserts that are harder than diamond, more stable and can be manufactured at room temperature. Q Carbon - Google Search
"Q-carbon is an allotrope of carbon, discovered in 2015, that is ferromagnetic, electrically conductive, and glows when exposed to low levels of energy. Wikipedia"

The Feynman program for a Billion Lathes (viewable/downloadable .pdf) - see page 5

Hot Rolled

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