Science Article

The first concepts of Nanotechnology

The first use of the concepts in 'nano-technology' (but predating use of that name) was in "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," a talk given by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959.

Feynman described a process by which the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules might be developed, using one set of precise tools to build and operate another proportionally smaller set, so on down to the needed scale. In the course of this, he noted, scaling issues would arise from the changing magnitude of various physical phenomena: gravity would become less important, surface tension and Van der Waals attraction would become more important, etc. This basic idea appears plausible, and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to produce a useful quantity of end products.

Today, in the young field of nanotechnology, scientists and engineers are taking control of atoms and molecules individually, manipulating them and putting them to use with an extraordinary degree of precision. Word of the promise of nanotechnology is spreading rapidly, and the air is thick with news of nanotech breakthroughs.

One of the most exciting technological advance in the world today is in the field of nanotechnology. Governments and bussines are investing billions of dollars in it. Public awareness of nanotech is clearly on the rise, too, partly because references to it are becoming more common in popular culture-with mentions in movies, books, video games, and television.

What is nanotechnology and how is it useful to us?

Some uses of nantechnology include :