Starting Small
Building from nothing with Nanotechnology
Since mans first tools and buildings, crude as they were, man has always reveled in his ability to create. The ability to build great coliseums and towering statues which will long outlast their creators is indeed an awesome talent. But over the eons, mankind has become less interested in how big our ingenuity can build, and instead is more focused on how small a scale we can create.
The contrast between a pyramid and a processor is a grossly overloaded subject, and does something of a disservice to this time of great ingenuity and creativity: the new millennium. But the point is more one of comparison. From the tiniest chips of silicone to great, thundering battleships, mankind has always been forced to manipulate the matter of the world in the same fashions. Sure, there exists a myriad of new and highly sophisticated production methods that are far removed from the chipping, chiseling, and grinding of the past, or are they? The fact remains that no matter what, we must manipulate matter in relatively great heaps of atoms. Melting, shaping, forming, bending are the sort of manipulation techniques that man has been stuck with for eons; sure, we can more or less get atoms to group together how we want, but we cannot really snap together atoms with great complexity. The realm of a radical and amazing science still in it’s youth can change everything. The science of nanotechnology makes it possible to not only see things on the atomic level, but to actually build from this level, allowing us to put together, manipulate, and alter the states of matter entirely however we see fit; allowing us to build atom by atom if necessary, from nothing.
Nanotechnology is a manmade science and is actually built upon a combination of a strong knowledge of biology, chemistry, and physics and is most precisely defined as the science of materials measured in billionths of a meter (What is… 1).[1] The science of Nanotechnology is basically research and development on manmade structures that: have at least one dimension which is one nanometer in size, are designed through a process involving fundamental control over the physical and chemical attributes of structures, and structures which can be combined into other structures, like atomic building blocks (2).
This science allows us to exert a degree of control over matter like nothing ever seen before. By developing matter ourselves at the molecular level, scientists and developers can create matter that is stronger, more elastic, or reflects light differently than matter found in nature (2). In essence, tougher steel, built from individual atoms. Shinier jewelry that never tarnishes, protective coatings from spacecraft and machine parts, or smarter pharmaceuticals are all made possible by nanotechnology.
As far as sciences go, the science of nanotechnology is the newest kid in town. The first recognition of nanotechnology, at least on a broad scale, occurred after Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman presented a talk called “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” to the American Physical Society in 1959 (4). In 1988, Eric Drexler taught the first formal course on nanotechnology at Stanford University (4). It was there that the first realistic speculation about nanotechnology was made when he suggested the possibility of nano-sized robots that would roam the body killing off cancer cells (4).
The face and future of nanotechnology changed dramatically when Professor Richard Smalley won the 1996 Nobel Prize for discovering a new from of Carbon molecule consisting of 60 Carbon atoms (4). This “supercarbon”, as is was referred to, became one of an increasing number of scientifically-enhanced building blocks for newer types of nano-sized products including “smart” pharmaceuticals, electronic devices, and high-performance raw materials (4).
Today, nanotechnology has moved much farther than the dream which it once was; however the applications of this technology are still very limited (NNI 1). Besides a number of difficulties, there are a great many things about the nano-realm of which we just don’t know yet. Nanotechnology is still a very new science and is still growing out of it’s infancy, but already is providing a great many new things. Nanotechnologies primary uses to date include the atomic altering of raw materials, production of electronics in nano-sized pieces, and biological and medicinal engineering.
The ability to arrange atoms and snap one atom to another provide an entirely new spectrum to the world of design. Not only can we say what material a product is to be made of, but we are also able to determine, to some extent, the that a sample of raw material displays. Nanomaterials are substances which began as natural matter, like Iron or Lead and are re-vamped, as it were, to have different characteristics (NNI 2). These materials are usually purchased in dry powder or in liquid dispersions with water, or combined with other materials in order to improve product functionality (2). Engineering on the scale of a nanometer allows the redesigning of elemental materials found in the natural world to fit our needs. Instead of time-consuming chemical and physical processes, science can now improve the physical characteristics of metals or plastics by snapping a Carbon atom in the right spots here and there (What is… 4). Nanoscale materials draw greatest revenues to date from chemical-mechanical polishing, magnetic recording, sunscreens, optical fibers, and electro conductive coatings (NNI 1). Nanotechnological solutions are cropping up in a huge range of commercial products (What is… 5).
While the electronic applications of nanotechnology are not quite up to the point of tiny ingenious droids flying about and repairing mainframes from inside out, nanotechnology has already beefed up the world of electronics quite a bit as of late. In fact, the hard drive in any computer on the market today was put together with a few parts built and designed at the scale of one-billionth of a meter (NNI 3). Most computer hard drives contain a component called a Giant Magneto Resistance head (or a GMR) which utilizes nanometer-thin layers of magnetic materials to allow for increased memory capacity and improved functionality (3).
Very tiny automotive sensors are also making a debut; built on a base of nanotechnology, some of these sensors can give an output as to what is wrong with a particular component, and which component it is (3). Speculation would suggest that someday these sensors would include tiny robots which could actually do something to rectify the problem of a broken part. Nanotechnology also improves the electro- conductivity of parts used in electronic applications by altering the chemical properties of the metals used in building circuitry (3).
The world of medicine is also no stranger to the benefits of nanotechnology. Biologists and life-scientists are currently using nanotechnology to diagnose disease and to discover new drugs (4). Instead of trying to find a chemical which, for instance, takes the place of a neurotransmitter that is missing in the brain of a patient, drugs can now be designed to fit just so into the complicated world of the human body. New burn and wound dressings with nanoscale-designed coatings are saving patients from scars right now (4).
The birth of this new science may be a pivotal and wonderful point in our advancement, but there is no reward without cost, and nanotechnology stands to produce great rewards. The realm of nanotechnology has its own problems to overcome and challenges to meet, some of which are simply confounding, but others can be dangerous if left unchecked.
One rather minute problem facing nanotechnology is sort of a given. Scientists working with individual atoms have trouble seeing what is on such a tiny scale. How can one manipulate what one cannot see or feel? One amazing new development from the researchers of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is called the “nanoantenna effect” (Casting Light…1). Researchers fire short bursts of liser light through fiber optics no larger than 100 nanometers wide, these bursts are reflected off of the object to be viewed and are captured by a computer (1). In this way, scientists can get a detailed image built onscreen and actually “see” atoms at their own level.
With every new scientific revolution, there has always been some negativity, misunderstanding, fear, and a lack of public acceptance. Nanotechnology, being a new and radical breakthrough like nothing before, is perhaps more subject to this sort of difficulty than ever. The reaction of the public to things like abortion, genetic mapping and any other radical breakthrough just foreshadows the type of difficulties facing nanotechnology. The novel by Michael Crichton entitled Prey describes a scene in which billions of nano-sized robots begin to go haywire and attack living creatures while also replicating themselves (1). While not exactly factual or even necessarily possible, it does show just the sort of reaction that could bring the world of nanotechnology to a screeching and devastating halt (1). In spite of a great many gifts that science has given to us, there have always been side effects to our own experimentation and creation. Nanotechnology is no different, and no matter how open-minded the populace of today seems in comparison to that of the past, there will still be those who fear new and revolutionary technology and this industry will simply have to deal with these prospective naysayers.
When changing the very building blocks of matter on such a tremendous scale, there is a bit of a trickle-down effect upon other matter. Studies have already shown, unfortunately that nanomaterials may have serious environmental side effects ( Social and…4). Nature works in such a precise manner, everything must work together just perfectly or balances are upset and problems occur. Like lines in a computer program, if one small part is changed, the rest of the program begins to break down and eventually fails. For instance, Carbon, an atom which is the basic building block of most solid matter and all living matter in our world works because of the way it is shaped, it has the right atomic structure to do its job and fits where it needs to. But change the way the atom fits together, or pair it with an atom that nature never intended and things begin to go wrong. It is somewhat like hacking the physics of the world, atom by atom.
Our world and our minds are changing so fast, the knowledge and data that we gain is increasing at an amazing rate. With the advent of nanotechnology, a radical new development, we stand at a crossroads of sorts. Some feel that tinkering with the building blocks of nature is in a sense ‘playing god’, others feel that the knowledge we stand to gain from this new invention is too vast to simply ignore just because we could have to pay a cost for it. Right or wrong nanotechnology is possible now and we have the beginnings of an amazing science which can change the future in amazing ways. Do we let this new beginning slide by and ignore it? Or will we embrace it and develop it? And should we choose to embrace it, will we know how to handle this power responsibly? Perhaps time will tell.
I only read the first few words, but it was enough to spot an error.
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