Synthetic

In the final years of the twentieth century, emigres from mechanical and electrical engineering and computer science resolved that if the aim of biology was to understand life, then making life would yield better theories than experimentation. Sophia Roosth, a cultural anthropologist, takes us into the world of these self-named synthetic biologists who, she shows, advocate not experiment but manufacture, not reduction but construction, not analysis but synthesis. Roosth reveals how synthetic biologists make new living things in order to understand better how life works. What we see through her careful questioning is that the biological features, theories, and limits they fasten upon are determined circularly by their own experimental tactics. This is a story of broad interest, because the active, interested making of the synthetic biologists is endemic to the sciences of our time."

Imagining a future in which humans fundamentally reshape the natural world using nanotechnology, synthetic biology, de-extinction, and climate engineering. We have all heard that there are no longer any places left on Earth untouched by humans. The significance of this goes beyond statistics documenting melting glaciers and shrinking species counts. It signals a new geological epoch. In The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston argues that what is most startling about this coming epoch is not only how much impact humans have had but, more important, how much deliberate shaping they will start to do. Emerging technologies promise to give us the power to take over some of Nature's most basic operations. It is not just that we are exiting the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene; it is that we are leaving behind the time in which planetary change is just the unintended consequence of unbridled industrialism. A world designed by engineers and technicians means the birth of the planet's first Synthetic Age. Preston describes a range of technologies that will reconfigure Earth's very metabolism: nanotechnologies that can restructure natural forms of matter; “molecular manufacturing” that offers unlimited repurposing; synthetic biology's potential to build, not just read, a genome; “biological mini-machines” that can outdesign evolution; the relocation and resurrection of species; and climate engineering attempts to manage solar radiation by synthesizing a volcanic haze, cool surface temperatures by increasing the brightness of clouds, and remove carbon from the atmosphere with artificial trees that capture carbon from the breeze. What does it mean when humans shift from being caretakers of the Earth to being shapers of it? And in whom should we trust to decide the contours of our synthetic future? These questions are too important to be left to the engineers.

This book, the outgrowth of a graduate course the authors taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was designed to fill an urgent need—the training of engineers in the production of synthetic fuels to replace dwindling supplies of natural ones. The authors presented synthetic fuels as a unified engineering subject, while recognizing that many of its principles are well-understood aspects of various engineering fields. The presentation begins with a review of chemical and physical fundamentals and conversion fundamentals, and proceeds to coal gasification and gas upgrading. Subsequent chapters examine liquids and clean solids produced from coal, liquids obtained from oil shale and tar sands, biomass conversion, and environmental, economic, and related aspects of synthetic fuel use. The text is directed toward beginning graduate students and advanced undergraduates in chemical and mechanical engineering, but should also appeal to students from other disciplines, including environmental, mining, petroleum, and industrial engineering, as well as chemistry. It also serves as a reference and guide for professionals.

Prior to 1914, Germany dominated the worldwide production of synthetic organic dyes and pharmaceuticals like aspirin. When World War I disrupted the supply of German chemicals to the United States, American entrepreneurs responded to the shortages and high prices by trying to manufacture chemicals domestically. Learning the complex science and industry, however, posed a serious challenge. This book explains how the United States built a synthetic organic chemicals industry in World War I and the 1920s. Kathryn Steen argues that Americans' intense anti-German sentiment in World War I helped to forge a concentrated effort among firms, the federal government, and universities to make the United States independent of "foreign chemicals." Besides mobilization efforts to make high explosives and war gases, federal policies included protective tariffs, gathering and publishing market information, and, most dramatically, confiscation of German-owned chemical subsidiaries and patents. Meanwhile, firms and universities worked hard to develop scientific and manufacturing expertise. Against a backdrop of hostilities and intrigue, Steen shows how chemicals were deeply entwined with national and international politics and policy during the war and subsequent isolationism of the turbulent early twentieth century.

The way electronic instruments are built is changing in a deeply fundamental way. It is making an evolutionary leap to a new method of design that is being called synthetic instruments. This new method promises to be the most significant advance in electronic test and instrumentation since the introduction of automated test equipment (ATE). The switch to synthetic instruments is beginning now, and it will profoundly affect all test and measurement equipment that will be developed in the future. Synthetic instruments are like ordinary instruments in that they are specific to a particular measurement or test. They might be a voltmeter that measures voltage, or a spectrum analyzer that measures spectra. The key, defining difference is this: synthetic instruments are implemented purely in software that runs on general purpose, non-specific measurement hardware with a high speed A/D and D/A at its core. In a synthetic instrument, the software is specific; the hardware is generic. Therefore, the "personality" of a synthetic instrument can be changed in an instant. A voltmeter may be a spectrum analyzer a few seconds later, and then become a power meter, or network analyzer, or oscilloscope. Totally different instruments are implemented on the same hardware and can be switched back and forth in the blink of an eye. This book explains the basics of synthetic instrumentation for the many people that will need to quickly learn about this revolutionary way to design test equipment. This book attempts to demystify the topic, cutting through, commercial hype, and obscure, vague jargon, to get to the heart of the technique. It reveals the important basic underlying concepts, showing people how the synthetic instrument design approach, properly executed, is so effective in creating nstrumentation that out performs traditional approaches to T&M and ATE being used today. provides an overview and complete introduction to this revolutionary new technology enables equipment designers and manufacturers to produce vastly more functional and flexible instrumentation; it's not your father's multimeter!