NANOTECHNOLOGY:
THE NEXT REVOLUTION                                                      
Smaller is better. Just ask a nanoscientist.
       A nanometer (one-billionth of a meter) is smaller than an atom, and when any material such as gold, iron, lead, plastic or brass, is at nanoscopic size, the properties it normally possesses change. By designing and building through manipulation of these tiny entities, new products are created with enhanced qualities and superior performance. Only recently have tools been developed to see and manipulate nanoscopic material.
       “Nanoscience,” write Mark and Daniel Ratner in their book, Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea, “is, at its simplest, the study of the fundamental principles of molecules and structures with at least one dimension roughly between 1 and 100 nanometers.” These nanostructures “aren’t just smaller than anything we’ve made before, they are the smallest solid things it is possible to make.”
       William Atkinson, president of Draaken Communications, writes in his recent book, Nanocosm, “Nanotechnology will soon let us bypass the substances that nature provides and start with a wish list of properties that a new material must have. We can then pick, choose, modify, and synthesize various molecules, creating stuff that meets our performance demands… In five to seven years you’ll be able to call a nanomaterial firm and tell them what you need. They’ll make your substance to order.”

What Can Nanotechnology Do?
Nanotechnology is already increasing data storage on disk drives, making clothes water-proof and highly resistant to wear and creating sturdier, more effective golf clubs, a longer-lasting tennis ball, hard-to-break sunglasses and mirrors that don’t fog. And this is merely the nanoscopic tip of the iceberg.
       The potential developments some scientists are predicting would be revolutionary, such as a supercomputer smaller than a grain of sand; a powerful weapon smaller than a mosquito; a much stronger airplane or spacecraft hull that is many times lighter than current models; efficient solar energy conversion that produces renewable energy at less cost than burning fossil fuels; a tiny foolproof automatic indicator that could constantly monitor a home for dangerous chemicals such as gas leaks, carbon monoxide or ozone; self-repairing, self-driving cars; self-cleaning homes and hospital sheets; and nano machines shot into the bloodstream that monitor a person’s health, deliver drugs precisely where and when needed and engage in warfare against germs and diseased cells.
       “It’s amazing what one can do just by putting atoms where you want them,” says Dr. Richard Smalley of Rice University in a report by the American Institute of Physics. “Twentieth-century technologies … pale in comparison with what will be possible” with nanotechnology.
       Nanotechnology is so wide ranging and touches on so many different scientific fields that its future applications seem almost boundless. How quickly the nano revolution will be widely felt by the general public is uncertain, but the general consensus is that nanotechnology will quite simply make a better everything. Dr. Vicki Colvin, a colleague of Dr. Smalley at Rice, predicts nanotechnology will be as much a part of our daily lives in 50 years as plastics are today.
       Rice University, with its Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, is at the forefront of this exciting, nascent field. Dr. Smalley, co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his co-discovery of Buckminsterfullerenes, a new form of carbon, told the Houston Chronicle, “Out of nanotechnology will come the answers, to the extent that there are answers, to the most vexing problems with which society is confronted. It’s the ultimate frontier in the game of building things.” However, we are just beginning to explore that frontier. “We’ve only begun to sail, chart, and record,” writes William Atkinson. “We still haven’t undertaken systematic trade or colonization. Today the nanocosm is like electricity in the age of Faraday, or heredity at the time of Mendel.”

Are We Prepared for Nanotechnology?
The awesome potential of nanotechnology has a negative side also, causing some to predict doomsday scenarios like that in the 2002 novel, Prey, by Michael Crichton, who wrote another science-gone-awry tale called Jurassic Park.
       In Prey, a swarm of intelligent, self-replicating nanomachines built for the military are loose, reproducing and killing animals. What’s worse, these smaller-than-dust predators seem bent on killing the scientists who created the nanomachines. Alarmist rubbish, say some. Quite possible, say others.
       Dr. Eric Drexler, who has been writing about nanotechnology and its potential dangers for more than two decades, is quoted by the Foresight Institute as saying, “There are many people, including myself, who are quite uneasy about the consequence of this technology for the future. We are talking about changing so many things that the risk of society handling it poorly through lack of preparation is very large.” Nevertheless, it seems nanotechnology will not be held back.
       On December 3, 2003, President George Bush signed into law the 21^st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act. The Act provides four years of research and development funding for nanotechnology beginning in fiscal year 2005. According to a White House press release, which calls nanotechnology one of the administration’s top multi-agency research and development priorities, “Nanotechnology offers the promise of breakthroughs that will revolutionize the way we detect and treat disease, monitor and protect the environment, produce and store energy and build complex structures as small as an electronic circuit or as large as an airplane. Nanotechnology is expected to have a broad and fundamental impact on many sectors of the economy, leading to new products, new businesses, new jobs, and even new industries.”

GLOSSARY
Buckminsterfullerenes — a form of carbon that is produced when 60 carbon molecules combine to make a closed hollow sphere with a one-nanometer diameter.
elements — the different identities of atoms; these identities are based on the number of protons in the nuclei.
micron — one millionth of a meter; also written micrometer.
molecular systems engineering  — design, analysis and construction of systems of molecular parts working together to carry out a useful purpose.
nanobot — a nanoscale machine.
nanometer — one billionth of a meter.
nanoscale — refers to phenomena that occur on the length scale between 1 and 100 nanometers.
quantum Dots — nanostructures of roughly spherical or cubic shape that are small enough to exhibit characteristically quantum behavior in optical or electrical processes.

Note: Discussion Questions in part from http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/index.html

SOURCES & SITES
Books
Atkinson, William Illsey. Nanocosm: Nanotechnology and the Big Changes Coming from the Inconceivably Small. AMACOM. 2003.

Crichton, Michael. Prey. HarperCollins. 2002.

Drexler, Eric K. Engines of Creation. Anchor. 1986.

Mulhall, Douglas. Our Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics, and Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Our World. Prometheus Books. 2002.

Ratner, Mark and Daniel. Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea. Prentice Hall. 2003.

Web sites
http://cnst.rice.edu/  (Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University)

www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html (Transcript of the classic talk that Richard Feynman gave on December 29, 1959, at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Was first published in the February 1960 issue of Caltech’s Engineering and Science, which owns the copyright. Feynman’s presentation marked when nanotechnology was recognized on a broad scale.)

http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/IPSE/ (Exploring the Nanoworld. Jessica Mahood, Beatriz Quinchia, and LJ Janowski. IPSE/MRSEC Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Activities and presentations for teachers in grades 5-9. Includes list of books, articles and Web sites.)

http://mrsec.wisc.edu/edetc/IPSE/ (Internships in Public Science Education at UW-Madison. Several nanotechnology links.)

www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/print/20031203-7.html (“President Bush Signs Nanotechnology Research and Development Act.” White House news release. December 3, 2003.)

www.aip.org/enews/fyi/1999/fyi99.106.htm (“White House and Congress Show Support for Nanotechnology.” The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News. Number 106: July 7, 1999.

www.trinity.edu/departments/public_relations/news_releases/decoursey-smalley.htm (“Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry to Share Research on Nanotechnology and Discovery of ‘Buckyballs.’” Trinity University news release. March 20, 2003.)

www.chron.com/content/chronicle/metropolitan/96/04/28/nanotechnology.html (“Rice University Researches on Cusp of Nanotechnology.” Todd Ackerman. Houston Chronicle. April 26, 1996.)

www.foresight.org (Foresight is a nonprofit educational organization formed to help prepare society for anticipated advanced technologies. Its primary focus is on molecular nanotechnology.)

www.nanoword.net (An online distributor of publications with a focus on nanoscience, technology and education. Tries to organize, review and make this emerging knowledge base accessible.)

www.nano.gov (Government nanotechnology site with information about funding, government reports, agency activities and links to education sites.)

www.nanotech-now.com (Nanotechnology Now was created to serve the information needs of business, government, academic and public communities, with the intention of becoming the most informative and current free collection of “nano” reference material.)

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