Nanotechnology

Introduction To Nanotechnology Has Been Discussed In Hushed Tones

Nanotechnology has been discussed in hushed tones by scientists, physicists and dreamers for thousands of years. Why was this technology, based around the word nano, which is a prefix in the SI units system, discussed in hushed tones? Because such was the complexity and scale of the concept so large and so involved, it was feared that people found discussing nanotechnology would be denounced as heretics or madmen.

Even up to fifty years ago, when renowned physicist and Nobel laureate Professor Richard Feynman discussed the possibilities of nanotechnology to an esteemed audience of scientists, physicists and scholars in a famous gathering in the very late nineteen fifties, many members of the audience thought that he was joking or had taken a certain leave of his senses.

Imagine one of the most well respected scientists of his era describing Nanotechnology as a form of fabrication going down in scale to be as low as atomic scale, and describing the technology as a bottom-up approach, one could imagine certain people shifting in their seats and coughing nervously. On the other hand, many members were aware of the principals of the yet unnamed technology and understood the message that the Professor was trying to put across.

Yet they new, as no doubt that professor also did, that the technology would not begin to surface, and even in its most basic form, for at least another 25 years. In the mid-1980s, leading Nanotechnology researcher K. Eric Drexler in his book "Engines of Creation" Mr. Drexler's book not only described the extensive potential that this old/new technology could offer to mankind, it also gave it its name " Nanotechnology." Through this publication, the business and scientific communities were made more aware of the possibilities that nanotechnology would provide for mankind over the next fifty years.

Mr. Drexler defined nanotechnology as the ability to fabricate any manner of mechanical devices at levels of atomic or molecular precision on a scale that had previously never been defined and were in fact at unimaginable levels to the uninitiated. To lay out a general description, mechanical devices that have been reduced to a minimum size of 100 nanometers as deemed to have been produced through the nanotechnology process. To understand the scale of nanotechnology, a nanometer is deemed to be one billionth of one meter, and is on scale with a single molecule. The evolution of nanotechnology based on this premise has only just begun, and even the most advanced of human brains can only imagine to where it will lead mankind.

Although Nanotechnology is regarded as being in its most infantile of stages, researchers still have the ability at their fingertips to take and reorganize matter on levels that are at an atomic scale, In today's market there are already many and numerous products available that have been developed and altered using Nanotechnology.

This has been made available due to the ability to fabricate dimensions that are less than 100 nanometers. The first and probably relatively primitive developments that nanotechnology has brought to our lives are in development of surface coatings, paints and so on. However these advances are for novelty appeal only and will fade rapidly in significance as breakthroughs in medicine and computer technology begin to raise their heads.

Research into nanotechnology continues unabated and continues around the globe due to business and scientific awareness of the unlimited potential that nanotechnology appears to offer. Until time will prove otherwise, the consensus appears to be that nanotechnology has the potential to solve the considerable problems that awaits the World as we move deeper into the 21st century.