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only in “melkoskop” (footnote: the old Russian word for a microscope), and when
wound up, it moved its feelers and danced. Upon the emperor's return this miracle
was shown to the Tula artisans for their edification. The most skillful gunsmith (the
left-handed man) stayed unimpressed and promised to modernize the flea. As a
result the flea could still move its feelers, but was not able to dance anymore. The
left-handed man explained to the angry emperor that the artisans shod the flea with
horseshoes. Stamped upon each shoe was the maker's name, and it was the left-
handed man who forged the tiny nails with which the shoes were fastened on.
More recently, in 1963-1964, the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem published a
science fiction novel
The Invincible
. In this novel, he designed a strange mechanical
civilization living on a distant planet—a complex system built from a huge number
of minuscule particles. Each of them housed a primitive sensor, a logic device,
an appliance for communicating with other particles, and a microscopic engine
enabling the particles to move freely. The logical capabilities, minimal for a single
particle, increased dramatically upon their association. The assembled conglo-
merate, the swarm as Lem calls it, was a distributed self-organized system with
decentralized control exercised by the collective intelligence of the system, the level
of which is determined by its size. In the novel the system particles initially reside
individually on the surface of the planet. If a foreign intruder appears a number of
proximate particles rise in the air. Dependent on the extent of the threat more and
more particles join the swarm, resulting in the growth of both the system's intelli-
gence and its operational capabilities. Particle sensors respond to biological entities
made of protein. The main objective of the population of particles is life competition
with biological life-forms. It suppresses biological organisms by surrounding them
by a cloud of particles and erasing their memory by a directed electromagnetic pulse.
1.1.1 A Little Detail: Systems of Microparticles
and Their “Emerging” Properties
It is surprising that in his novel Stanislaw Lem anticipated the nanotechnological
principle of system design known today as “bottom-up.” The modern industrial
practice is dominated by the opposite “top-down” approach when based on
preestablished instructions and a selected technology the initial metal bar is,
for example, successively turned, milled, and reamed, to obtain the final product—
the desired component part (Fig.
1.1
). In contrast, the “bottom-up” principle in its
pure form implies that the product is successively created from its basic parts by
means of self-organization processes. The starting material for manufacturing the
product represents a system consisting of a large number of elements (atoms,
molecules, or their assemblies), each of which can perform certain physical actions.
A crucial factor determining the “technological” capabilities of the system is the
nature of the interaction between these elements. Under certain conditions the
system acquires properties lacking in its separate elements. More details on
the occurrence of such “emerging” properties will be given below.
