Early Intimations

J.D. Bernal penned these words back in 1929, two years before Huxley wrote “Brave New World”.

So far we have been living on the discoveries of the early and mid-nineteenth century, a macro-mechanical age of power and metal. Essentially it succeeded in substituting mechanism for some of the simpler mechanical movements of the human body…. This was sufficient to revolutionize the whole of human life and to turn the balance definitely for man against the gross natural forces; but the discoveries of the twentieth century, particularly the micro-mechanics of the Quantum Theory which touch on the nature of matter itself, are far more fundamental and must in time produce far more important results.

The first step will be the development of new materials and new processes in which physics, chemistry and mechanics will be inextricably fused. The stage should soon be reached when materials can be produced which are not merely modifications of what nature has given us in the way of stones, metals, woods and fibers, but are made to specifications of a molecular architecture. Already we know all the varieties of atoms; we are beginning to know the forces that bind them together; soon we shall be doing this in a way to suit our own purposes….

After the analysis will come the synthesis; and for one place in which we can imitate nature we will be able to improve on her in ten….The result – not so very distant – will probably be the passing of the age of metals and all that it implies – mines, furnaces, and engines of massive construction. Instead we should have a world of fabric materials, light and elastic, strong only for the purposes for which they are being used, a world which will imitate the balanced perfection of a living body.

This was excerpted from “The World, the Flesh, and the Devil”.
If you want to read the rest, it is available here, and highly recommended.
Perhaps D.F. Moore might like to incorporate parts of it into one of his public outreach nanotechnology lectures.