[Flightdeck]

"Nanotechnology is the construction of things atom-by-atom using molecular machines in massively parralel systems to construct large and small scale objects/"

Not to split hairs, but that's not exactly correct. I work in the nanoscale heat-transfer field, and we don't really get down to the atomic level. Nano is 10^-9 meter, and most nanofabrication is done between 20 (way lower limit) to 1000 nanometers. An atom of silicon runs an Angstrom or so across (10^-10 m), which is 200 to 10,000 times smaller. It took IBM a couple weeks to put together the famous picture of 'I B M' in clumps of atoms (not individual atoms). I can positively tell you that we don't have the capability of individual atomic manipulation right now, definitely not on a massively parallel scale whatever that book says.

[Brett66]

The book explored the implications of a mature nanotechnology with assembler factories cranking out large-scale objects. It touched a little on the pre-assembler attempts at manipulating atoms. Fascinating read.....