I want to discuss nanotechnology again this week. Christine Peterson who was the head of the Foresight Institute, a nanotech think tank, stated in 2004 regarding a potential nanotech based industrial revolution, “[the nanotech revolution] is going to be very big, much bigger than computers, because it will change everything around us. Computers only really altered one major aspect of our lives, but nanotechnology will change almost everything, from consumer products we buy to the way we practice medicine.”
I initially rejected this claim. I did not agree that nanotech is bigger than the steam engine? Electricity? Telegraph/telephone? Computer? Flying? Although, as I thought about this, I realized that nanotechnology could revolutionize each of these devices. (perhaps not the steam engine or telegraph). For example, the power of a computer is determined by the number of transistors (also known as switches) on its chip. As transistors have continued to shrink over the last 30 years computers have become more powerful. However, there will be a limitation to how far the transistors can be shrunk. Enter a switch that is one molecule wide. Thousands of these switches could fit on the smallest transistor we have today. As such, a cell phone equipped with a postage stamp sized chip utilizing molecular switches/transistors would be thousands of times more powerful than the highest end computer available now!
What would happen if we incorporated these nanotech chips into cars, bikes, planes, trucks, trains, clothes, and so on? Would this revolutionize society? Would this revolutionize human life? Furthermore, the increase in computing ability is only one aspect of life. What would happen if each industry (transportation, medicine, manufacturing, etc.) experienced a nanotech revolution?
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3 comments:
Excellent questions, Mike. At least with a nanotech diffusion, the sheer mass of materials used will be so much smaller than with previous "revolutions." Perhaps this is the magic secret of sustainability?
I found an interesting application of nanotechnology in medicine. "lab on a chip", a chip is implanted which acts as a monitor to check all your bio chemical levels. You can program it to regulate a particular chemical or general monitoring.
Pushya, I too find this medical application and others especially interesting.
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