(Original)
《生命模板》
20世纪后半期，科学家费因曼和德雷克斯勒开启了纳米科学的先河。他们说，自古以来人们制造物品的方法都是“自上而下”的，是用切削、分割、组合的方法来制造。那么，为什么我们不能“自下而上”呢？可以设想制造这样的纳米机器人，它们能大量地自我复制。然后它们去分解灰尘的原子，再把原子堆砌成肥皂和餐巾纸。这时，生命和非生命、制造和成长的界限就模糊了，互相渗透了。
这当然是一个美好的设想，可惜其中有一个重大的缺陷——当纳米机器人大量复制时，当它们把原子堆砌成肥皂和餐巾纸时，它们所需的程序指令从何而来？毫无疑问，这个指令仍是自上而下的，因此就形成宏现世界到纳米世界的信息瓶颈。这个瓶颈并非不能解决，但它会使纳米机器人大大复杂化，使自下而上的堆砌繁琐得无法进行。
有没有简便的真正自下而上的方法？有，自然界有现成的例子——生命。即使最简单的生命，如艾滋病毒，大肠杆菌、线虫、蚊子，它们的构造也是极复杂的，远远超过汽车、电视机等机器，但这些复杂体却能按DNA 中暗藏的指令，自下而上地建造起来。这个过程极为高效和低廉。想想吧，如果以机械的办法造出一架功能不弱于蚊子的微型直升机，需要人们做出多么艰巨的努力，付出多少金钱！而蚊子的发育呢，只需要一颗虫卵和一池污水就行了。
由于生命体的极端复杂和精巧，人们常把它神秘化，认为它只能是上帝所创造，认为生命体的建造过程是人类永远无法破译的黑箱。实际上并非如此，只要用还原论的手术刀去剖析它，就会发现它也是一种自组织过程，仅此而已。宇宙中的一切都是由自组织形成：宇宙大爆炸形成的夸克，宇宙星云中产生的星体，地球岩石圈的形成，石膏和氯化纳的结晶，六角形雪花的凝结。等等。宇宙中的四种力：强力、弱力、电磁力和引力是万能的粘合剂，是它们促使复杂组织能自发地建造。
生命也是一种自组织，不过是高层面的自组织，两者的区别在于：非生命物质自组织过程是不需要模板的，或者说它也要模板，但这种模板很简单，宇宙中无处不有。所以，太阳和100亿光年外的恒星可以有相同的成长过程；巴纳德星系的行星上如果飘雪花，它也只能是六角，绝不会是五角，而生命体的自组织需要复杂的模板，它们只能产生于难得的机缘和亿万年的进化。但不管怎么说，生命体的建造本质上也是一种物理过程，是由化学键（实质上是电磁力）驱使原子自动堆砌成原子团，原子团变形、拓展、翻卷，直到生命体建造出来。
想造一台微型直升机吗？假如我们找到类似蚊卵的模板（当然不需要吸血功能），让它孵化、发育……这个工作该多么简单！
不过，以蛋白质为基础的生命体有致命的弱点：它太脆弱，不耐热，不耐冻，不耐辐射，寿命短，强度低，等等。那么，能否用硅、锡、钠、铁、铝、汞等金属原子，依照生命体的建造原理，“自下而上”地建造出高强度的纳米机器，或纳米生命呢？
经过30年的摸索，我想我已制造了硅锡钠生命的最简单的模板。
(Translation)
LIFE TEMPLATE
In the later half of 20th century, two scientists, Feynman and Drechsler, launched the beginning of nanotechnology. As they said, since ancient times people have kept making stuff by means of "breaking-down", i.e., the means of cutting, splitting and composing. However, isn't it possible to produce by means of "self-organization"? It is conceivable that making self-duplicating nanometer robots could make it possible to decompound atoms of dust and build them into a soap or a piece of napkin. In doing so the threshold between life and non-life or making and growing is blurred and overlapped.
It is surely a nice concept if without the regrettable momentous flaw --- how to get the required program order that guides those nanometer robots when self-duplicating and building atomic piles into soap and napkin? There is no doubt that this order still comes from the top hence the information bottleneck between macro world and nanometer world. It's not impossible to bypass the bottleneck but the solution would make nanometer robots far more complicated and the piling from bottom to top too complicated to proceed.
Isn't there any real simple self-organizing method? The answer is Yes --- Life is a good example in the nature. Even the simplest life such as AIDS virus, colibacillus, eelworms and mosquitoes has a far more complicated structure than machine like automobile or TV does. However, such complex creature comes into being from bottom to top by the hidden instruction in DNA, which seems to be an efficient and economical process. Just think about how much effort and money we would have to pay for manufacturing a mini-helicopter functioning the same as a mosquito! On the contrary, the requirement of a mosquito's grownup is simply a nit and dirty water.
Owing to its extreme complexity and sophistication, the living creature is often mystified by people as the fine work of God and its formation is considered as a black box that man can never uncover. However, that can't be true in reality. Just cut it open with a reductive knife and you will find it's nothing more than a self-organization process. Everything in the universe is the creation of self-organization: quark from Big Bang, stars from nebula, geosphere of the earth, gypsum and salt, six-sided snowflakes, so on and so forth. The four fundamental forces in the universe, including Nuclear forces, Weak forces, Electromagnetic forces, and Gravitational forces, are the all-purpose glue that provokes the self-construction of complicated structures.
Life is also a kind of self-organization which is only a bit more sophisticated. The difference is: the self-organization progress of non-life materials doesn't need a template, or you can say there is a template, but it's very simple and can be found everywhere in the universe. So the sun can share the same growing path as another star 10 billion light-year away; the snowflakes on the planets of Barnard galaxy would also be a hexagon not a pentagon, if any. While the complicated template that life needs for self-organization could only be a result of god-given chances and evolution of millions and billions of years. Nevertheless, the formation of life is still essentially a physical process which is built through transmutation, expansion and curling of radicals that are bricked automatically with atoms by chemical bonds (electromagnetic forces actually).
Imagine making a micro-helicopter? What an easy job it wound be if we just found a template similar to the one of mosquitoes (blood-sucking function disabled of course) and activate it to grow!
However, critical weaknesses also exist in the protein-based beings: they are vulnerable and unable to bear high heat or coldness or radiation; their life is short and not strong enough; so on and so forth. Well then, how about making a nano-machine or even nano-life pursuant to formation theory of life-beings from metal atoms like silicon, tin, sodium, iron, aluminum, or mercury?
I think I have made a simplest template for silicon-tin-sodium beings as a result of my 30 years of study.
