Wonders Await Micro Microscope 45 47 Saturday by Feynman Richard (3 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Fine. Three of among the earliest appearances in print of a foundation stone in nanotechnology by the great Richard Feynman. (FEYNMAN, Richard P.) Nanotechnology. 3 papers. "The Wonders That Await a Micro-Microscope." Saturday Review, 2 April 1960, pp. 45-47. WITH: Feynman, R.P. "How to Build an Automobile Smaller Than This Dot." Popular Science, Nov. 1960, vol 177 #5 (254pp), pp. 114-116, 230, and 232. AND WITH: Feynman, R.P. The December 12 1960 issue of TIME Magazine5 referred to the talk on the occasion of the award of the first Feynman prize to James McLellan, (but) presented a short summary of the speech's contents only. Offered here are three of the four earliest appearances of Richard Feynman's visionary work on what would be known as "nanotechnology". The transcript of his talk "There's plenty of room at the bottom", was given by Richard Feynman on December 29, 1959 in Pasadena on the occasion of the American Physical Society's Winter Meeting of the West, and was first printed in the February 1960 issue of the "California Institute of Technology Journal of Engineering and Science" 4(2), 23 36  (1960), which as it turns out is a rare artifact and relatively unobtainable. The three items offered here are the next three appearances in print of this famous talk (#s 2-4 following the Caltech paper). (A chronology of the printing of the Feynman talk is given in an excellent paper by Stephen Tuomey Reading Feynman into Nanotechnology , Techne, 12:3 Fall, 2008.) [++] All are housed in a beautiful custom leather solander case. The Feynman address comes four years after the introduction of the word "microminiaturization" enters the language; 14 years before "nanotechnology", and 35 years before "quantum computing" (according to the OED). The three Feynmans include: Feynman, R.P. "The Wonders That Await a Micro-Microscope." Saturday Review, 2 April 1960, pp. 45-47. Feynman, R.P. "How to Build an Automobile Smaller Than This Dot." Popular Science, Nov. 1960, vol 177 #5 (254pp), pp. 114-116, 230, and 232. Feynman, R.P. The December 12 1960 issue of TIME Magazine referred to the talk on the occasion of the award of the first Feynman prize to James McLellan, (but) presented a short summary of the speech's contents only. [++] Experts and leaders in the field have this to say about the Feynman talk and its place in the history of nanotechnology: "Eric Drexler says that The revolutionary Feynman vision launched the global nanotechnology race (Drexler 2004:21); An entry in the Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Technology explains that the impetus for nanotechnology came "from a famous talk by the Nobel physicist Richard Feynman in 1959" (Thomas 2004); In his collection of Feynman's papers, Jeffrey Robbins calls Feynman "the father of nanotechnology by virtue of his Plenty of Room paper". One major biography of Feynman says that "Nanotechnologists thought of Feynman as their spiritual father" (Gleick 1992:356). According to Adam Keiper's introductory article on nanotech, "Usually the credit for inspiring nanotechnology goes to a lecture by Richard Phillips Feynman."[i.e., Plenty of Room] (Keiper 2003:18). The National Nanotechnology Initiative's glossy brochure on nanotech reminds us that "One of the first to articulate a future rife with nanotechnology was Richard Feynman" (Amato 1999:4).Ray Kurzweil writes that "Most nanotechnology historians date the conceptual birth of nanotechnology to Richard Feynman's seminal speech in 1959, There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom"(Kurzweil 2005:227). (Source: Toumey's 2008 article Reading Feynman into Nanotechnology,Techne, 12:3 Fall, 2008. See also: "From an idea to a vision: There's plenty of room at the bottom", American Journal of Physics 74, 825 (2006). AND: Kornei, The Beginning of Nanotechnology at the 1959 APS Meeting, APS News, November 2016 .

Wraps. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Two important publications in popular press that mark early work of Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988) and his work in nanotechnology. Marking the occasion of Feynman awarding the first Feynman Prize to James McLellan for his work in submicrominiaturization, the Time Magazine piece summarizes an earlier speech Feynman gave at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society on December 29, 1959, titled "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom." That speech as well as the these two publications are the genesis of what would go on to become known as Nanotechnology, for which Feynman is credit as first theorizing then pursuing. 4to. Magazines. Light scuffing and wear to each, mailing lables at base of each cover. Center pages in Time Magazine edition slightly loose.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, of the earliest practically obtainable printing of Feynman's famous and visionary Caltech after-dinner lecture, 'There's plenty of room at the bottom,' which represents the birth of nanotechnology, the field of applied science involving manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. "The revolutionary Feynman vision . . . launched the global nanotechnology race" (Drexler, p. 21). At the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in December 1959, Richard Feynman delivered an after-dinner lecture entitled 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom'. "The banquet speech would prove prescient. Feynman's lecture is widely accepted as spurring the field of nanotechnology, and the Nobel Prize Committee lauded it as visionary when they awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to researchers who assembled tiny motors made of molecules" (Kornei). Years before the term nanotechnology would be coined, Feynman laid out the principal problems and potentials of the field. He noted, "I will not discuss how we are going to do it, but only that it is possible in principle in other words what is possible according to the laws of physics." Feynman considered the possibility of direct manipulation of individual atoms as a more powerful form of synthetic chemistry than those used at the time. Feynman laid out challenge after challenge: reducing the Encyclopedia Britannica to a pinhead, making an electron microscope that could see individual atoms, building a microscopic computer, and even "swallowing the doctor": building a tiny, ingestible surgical robot. In an era when computers filled entire rooms, what Feynman proposed seemed nearly unfathomable: "I am not afraid to consider the final question as to whether, ultimately in the great future we can arrange atoms the way we want; all the way down!" A transcript of 'Plenty of room' was published by the Caltech magazine Engineering & Science in February 1960; this is very rare indeed (we are not aware of any copy of the journal having appeared on the market). The present article is the earliest reprint of the Engineering & Science article, and is virtually identical to it except for the omission of the first two introductory paragraphs, and the final three, in which Feynman proposes a prize for the first person who can reduce a page of a book to 1/25,000 of the original size in such a way that it can be read by an electron microscope. Drexler, 'Nanotechnology: From Feynman to Funding,' Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 24 (2004), pp. 21-27. Kornei, 'The Beginning of Nanotechnology at the 1959 APS Meeting,' APS News, November 2016. 8vo, original printed wrappers (wrappers very slightly creased and soiled, address label on front wrapper, pages lightly browned). A very good copy.