Self-Assembly, Self-Organization: Nanotechnology and Vitalism

Drexler [15] p. 2; Richard Jones rather used the metaphor of the jigsaw puzzle (Jones [18], p. 91–93)

See Whitesides and Boncheva Whitesides and Boncheva [40], Shuguang [42], MRS Bulletin, 31 January 2006,

Actually some scientists like to play magics. In a European conference of chemistry (Budapest, August 2006), David Leigh from Edinburgh performed magic tricks while presenting the results of his work on self-assembly.

See Newman [31]

Berthelot [10] p. 265–77. On the urea synthesis legend see [12, 32].

See for instance Ball [4]

Whether biological systems designed by Darwinian evolution are optimized or not is the matter of ongoing debates. Gould and Lewontin [17] For Jones biological systems are optimized and provide a norm rather than inspiration for nanotechnology. “The insights of molecular cell biology show us more and more clearly how optimised nature‘s machines are for operation at the nanoscale. …] Nature has evolved to get nanotechnology right. (p.7) By contrast, Whitesides points out a major limit of bio-inspiration for self-assembly: biosystems do not make use of magnetic interactions which could prove very promising in technological systems because they are rather insensitive to environment. But here is precisely the key feature of self-assembly in biological systems. It is a process involving environment-sensitive properties, and responding to environmental changes.

See Table 1 in Whitesides and Grzybovski [41]

Jones [18] softmachines blog, March,14, 06 How much should we worry about bioNT ?

Whitesides quoted by Ball [5] p. 501.

See Bensaude-Vincent and Stengers [6] p. 152–154

See Lehn [24] Table 3 on p. 2402.

Lehn quoted by Ball [5] p. 501.

See Dupuy [16]