K. Eric Drexler (born 1955) has done more to raise public consciousness about molecular nanotechnology than any other scientist. He is chairman of the Foresight Institute, has lectured extensively, and has written three books on nanotechnology. Drexler also invented the high performance solar sail and a method for processing and fabricating metals in space.

Kim Eric Drexler was born on April 25, l955, in Oakland, California, to Allan Barry Drexler, a management consultant, and Hazel Edna Gassmann, an audiologist and speech pathologist. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving a bachelor's degree in Interdisciplinary Science in 1977, a master's degree in Engineering in 1979, and a doctorate in Molecular Nanotechnology in 1991. On July 18, l981, he married Christine Louise Peterson, an MIT engineer.

Drexler became interested in predicting future technology while studying for his master's degree at MIT. Futurists try to come up with plausible pictures of the future and solve problems...