For me it’s been just “few years” of dreaming about and loving a field that I could finally start my research on, six months ago, as I joined the MEMS program at UofM; but it has challenged several crazy engineers for almost half a century. And it is really amazing/surprising/puzzling (whatever you would say!) that all the things also began from a crazy –and at the same time funny– dream.
I always try not to say that by reading this or that book/article, or watching this or that movie, or even by meeting a great character/person/scientist/artist, my life has totally been changed and got so influenced that a revolution occurred in my own world; just because I think this kind of dramatization can only be a good idea for making the history more attractive for its audiences, and I’m not a part of history –yet!
However, I could never reply anything other than “Have you seen the movie ‘Fantastic Voyage’ ever?” in return, whenever I was asked about MEMS and why I’m interested in it. And it happens almost every time I start explaining my research for –and at the same time start exciting– people with no affiliation in MEMS. It's been so, for a while, something around 3-4 years, since I got introduced to MEMS and told myself quickly: “Wow! It’s the same as the movie Fantastic Voyage!” (It’s not a great movie at all –at least by my opinion! But it can still be a good reference.)
But you’ll certainly find it even more surprising –as I also found it so for the first time– if you know that the first idea of having a “Microelectromechanical Device or Robot” was exactly inspired by that movie! Although you might get a bit frustrated of your research, when you realize that all the things you’re really serious about has come from science-fiction and Hollywood, but it’s still almost the exact way DARPA reviews the MEMS proposals: The more science-fiction it is, the more likely it’ll be approved!
Almost all of those working on MEMS are aware of Ken Wise’s role in the development of MEMS; he’s at least one of the main three contributors to the MEMS world, if you’re exacting enough not to call him “Father of MEMS”. He published, however, a quite interesting review paper on the history of MEMS last year which he named “Integrated sensors, MEMS, and microsystems: Reflections on a fantastic voyage”. It's really worth to take a look at that if you are interested in knowing a bit more about the history of MEMS and its origin. You’ll specially find what I’m talking about if you read this part in the 2nd section:
My own entry into the world of integrated sensors came in May 1966 in a seminar given by Dr. Frank Morrell at Stanford University. It was the same year the movie Fantastic Voyage was released...
…
Because I was on-leave from Bell Labs and was planning to spend the summer of 1966 there, I was invited to use this topic as the basis of my doctoral dissertation. I spent many lunch hours that summer talking with the people doing selective silicon etching at Murray Hill and reading about the electrodes then used in neurophysiology...
Yes! It was the way MEMS began! And I was really surprised to explore(!) that paper last year. It’s also funny that he (Prof. Wise) has highlighted his own role indirectly –and at the same time, humbly– on the development of MEMS using the following chart in that paper:
(Though he doesn’t point out in the paper, the dashed line somehow represents his footprint in his move from Bell Labs to Stanford and then to UofM!)
***
But… It was just for the last year! Few hours ago, I found another interesting thing about the history of MEMS: Richard Feynman’s talk on nanotechnology: “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom (1959)” (I’d heard that sentence as a MEMS advertisement several times, but I hadn’t read the talk before today.) It’s truly amazing, not only because of his predictions –which might not be so true due to his inaccurate imagination of micro-electronics– but also because of the direction of the paper which is totally about “micromachining”; It talks mostly about the dream of having small robots that can be e.g. implanted into blood vessels for treatment; almost the same as that movie, as he mentions:
…it would be interesting in surgery if you could swallow the surgeon. You put the mechanical surgeon inside the blood vessel and it goes into the heart and “looks” around. (Of course the information has to be fed out.) It finds out which valve is the faulty one and takes a little knife and slices it out. Other small machines might be permanently incorporated in the body to assist some inadequately-functioning organ...
And he mostly addresses the “possibility” of having (not the detailed properties of) such devices, in terms of physical laws, as he points out several times:
“But there is plenty of room to make them smaller. There is nothing that I can see in the physical laws that says such devices cannot be made enormously smaller than what they are now.”
But his talk might seem to be even a bit frustrating if you read the following parts when you're being challenged with a hard-to-solve problem in MEMS:
“What are the possibilities of small but movable machines? They may or may not be useful, but they surely would be fun to make!”
And:
…Now, you might say, “Who should do this and why should they do it?" Well, I pointed out a few of the economic applications, but I know that the reason that you would do it might be just for fun. But have some fun! Let's have a competition between laboratories. Let one laboratory make a tiny motor which it sends to another lab which sends it back with a thing that fits inside the shaft of the first motor…
Interesting, huh?! But, I got frustrated after reading that! Because it’s been almost the most common usage of MEMS so far! You see?! I work on a field i.e. just useful for science-fiction, fun, and an endless crazy competition. And even my adviser’s quote ("We’ve just scratched the surface!" which reminds that there might be so many applications in the future) doesn’t help much, because it also reminds me of another MEMS professor's (currently at UofM) quote (Prof. Gianchandani) who always jokes with his (and now our!) field as: “As a MEMS engineer we just make some TOYS for fun and w/o any special application!”...
Well... What a fun! (or what the... hehe...)
P.S.1. I guess it's definitely enough for writing! I should go back to the real research and as Feynman also says "Have some fun!"... I just wrote this much in order to strongly recommend both Wise’s review paper and Feynman’s talk as interesting readings: One from a perspective behind, and the other from a perspective ahead (though of old times, it still looks pretty new), which surprisingly almost match each other…
P.S.2. I still pursue that dream and fascination; that's why I proudly say my research interest is MEMS. But I always remind it to myself (the very cruel advice of the dean of research at college of engineering, Prof. Forrest) that "Never ever fall in love with technology, because it'll kill you for sure, although there's no generalization."... well... who knows better than Stephen Forrest?! He's almost a Noble Laureate (if there was any Noble prize for technology, he would have won so many so far!) in the world of technology... and it's not art or dream and even science, but just the cruel world of engineering... So, let's have some fun!
0 comments:
Post a Comment