One of the things that we can say with confidence is that we will have much lighter, much stronger materials, and this will reduce the cost of air flight, and the cost of rockets.

1998 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology for computational modeling of molecular tools for atomically-precise chemical reactions
1999 IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computers and Communications Award
2000 RSA award for the invention of public key cryptography. Career
Merkle was the manager of compiler development at Elxsi from 1980. Hamming Medal in 2010.

Ralph C. Merkle appears in the science fiction novel The Diamond Age involving nanotechnology.