The 22+ Ralph Merkle Quotes

The First Approximation In This Future That We're Looking At Is That Everyone Will Be Physically Well Off. They Will Have A Great Abundance In Material Goods, And As A Consequence, I Think That Will Soften Some Of The Conflicts We See Now.

Manufacturing Takes Place In Very Large Facilities. If You Want To Build A Computer Chip, You Need A Giant Semiconductor Fabrication Facility. But Nature Can Grow Complex Molecular Machines Using Nothing More Than A Plant.

Today We See A Human Population Of Over 6 Billion People, Many Of Whom Have Serious Medical Conditions, Which Either Can't Be Treated Or Cannot Be Treated Economically.

Because Of Technological Limits, There Is A Certain Amount Of Food That We Can Produce Per Acre. If We Were To Have Intensive Greenhouse Agriculture, We Could Have Much Higher Production.

As In Any Technological Revolution, There Will Be Winners And Losers. On Balance, Everyone Will Come Out Ahead, Although There Will Be Particular Companies That Will Not Be Able To Cope With A New Environment.

One Of The Things That We Can Say With Confidence Is That We Will Have Much Lighter, Much Stronger Materials, And This Will Reduce The Cost Of Air Flight, And It Will Reduce The Cost Of Rockets.

We Are Looking At A Future Where To A First Approximation Everyone Is Wealthy.

If You Look At The Human Condition Today, Not Everyone Is Well Fed, Has Access To Good Medical Care, Or The Physical Basics That Provide For A Healthy And A Happy Life.

There Are Certain Things That Are Inherently Scarce. For Example, There Is Only A Certain Amount Of Beachfront Property In California. It Is Going To Be Scarce, It Is Going To Be Expensive.

If You Look At The Various Strategies Available For Dealing With A New Technology, Sticking Your Head In The Sand Is Not The Most Plausible Strategy.

One Of The Concepts Essential To Molecular Manufacturing Is That Of A Self-replicating Manufacturing System. That Concept Has Lagged Behind In Its Acceptance.

It Looks As Though Yields Of Over 10 Times What We Can Currently Grow Per Acre Are Feasible If You Control The Co2 Concentration, The Humidity, The Temperature, All The Various Factors That Plants Depend On To Grow Rapidly.