Nanotechnology and The End of the World as We Know It
Broadly defined, nanotechnology is the precise and purposeful manipulation of matter at the atomic level.
The first part of the word "nanotechnology" derives from the Greek "nanos," which means dwarf. The term has been adopted by the scientific community to mean billionth (10^-9). The Greek "techne" means art, craft, and the Greek "logos" means word, or discourse. Therefore, nanotechnolgy is the study or discourse concerning the art and craft of creating structures measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. For perspective, single atoms measure about one tenth of a nanometer; DNA is 2.3 nanometers wide.
By controlling matter flexibly using nature's most fundamental building blocks, atoms, it is becoming practical to create a much larger range of complicated structures than previously possible, and this has consequences of enormous importance.
If you want to know more about this exciting turn in technology, which some believe is as profound as any change in the course of human technological developement, come to the January Doreh for a slide presentation by BC Crandall.
BC Crandall is the founder and director of Molecular Realities and the founder and president of Memetic Engineering. He is also the cofounder of Prime Arithmetics, Inc. He edited the proceedings of the first international conference on nanotechnology, _Nanotechnology: Research and Perspectives_, which was published by The MIT Press in 1992. The Molecular Realities website can be found at < http://www.well.com/~bcc/MolecularRealities/ >. His most recent book is entitled, _Nanotechnology: Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance_, published this fall by The MIT Press.
Mr Crandall has also been interviewed a number of times, including:
See: http://www.ctheory.com/ga1.5-nanotech.html
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