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Nanotechnology

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Nanogears

Nanotechnology as a collective term refers to technological developments on the nanometer scale, usually 0.1-100nm. (One nanometer equals one thousandth of a micrometer or one millionth of a millimeter.) The term sometimes applies to any microscopic technology. Due to the small size, physical phenomena not observed at the macroscopic scale dominate. These nanoscale phenomena include quantum effects and short range forces such as van der Waals forces. Furthermore the vastly increased ratio of surface area to volume promotes surface phenomena.

In fiction and media, "nanotechnology" often refers to hypothetical molecular nanotechnology.

=History=

The first mention of nanotechnology (not yet using that name) occurred in a talk given by Richard Feynman in 1959, entitled There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom. Feynman suggested a means to develop the ability to manipulate atoms and molecules "directly", by developing a set of one-tenth-scale machine tools analogous to those found in any machine shop. These small tools would then help to develop and operate a next generation of one-hundredth-scale machine tools, and so forth. As the sizes get smaller, we would have to redesign some tools because the relative strength of various forces would change. Gravity would become less important, surface tension would become more important, van der Waals attraction would become important, etc. Feynman mentioned these scaling issues during his talk. Nobody has yet effectively refuted the feasibility of his proposal.

The term nanotechnology first appeared in K. Eric Drexler's 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. He explored this subject in some technical depth in an MIT doctoral dissertation, later expanded into Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation, but failed to address issues related to the massive numbers and atoms needed to create even primitive molecular machines. Currently (and in the foreseable future) no computational methods exist to determine the reaction coordinates and other information needed for the mechanochemistry proposed [1].

New materials, devices, technologies

References

Current useful reference works

  • Nanotechnology, electronic journal since 1990, available on web and CD-ROM.
  • Drexler and others have extended the ideas of nanotechnology with two more books, Unbounding the Future: the Nanotechnology Revolution [2] and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation [3]. Unbounding the Future, an easy-to-read book, introduces the ideas of nanotechnology in a not-too-technical way; and Nanosystems provides an in-depth analysis of nanomachines and molecular manufacturing, with thorough scientific analyses of their feasibility and performance. Note another notable work in the same vein: Nanomedicine by Robert Freitas.
One test of the freedom a technology offers is whether it frees people to return to primitive ways of life. Modern technology fails this test; molecular technology succeeds. As a test case, imagine returning to a stone-age style of life—not by simply ignoring molecular technology, but while using it. [4]

Nanotechnology in fiction

Nanotechnology has also become a prominent theme in science fiction [5], for example with the Borg in Star Trek, the game Deus Ex, Greg Bear's Blood Music, Michael Crichton's Prey, and Neal Stephenson's more accurate book The Diamond Age.

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