Expert: Mike Treder - 10/24/2005

Question
what is nanotechnology? what is its scope of development?

Answer
Nanotechnology is the engineering of tiny machines — the projected ability to make things from the bottom up, using techniques and tools being developed today to place every atom and molecule in a desired place. Shortly after this envisioned molecular machinery is created, it will result in a manufacturing revolution, probably causing severe disruption. It also has serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications.

Nanotechnology is often referred to as a general-purpose technology. That's because in its mature form it will have significant impact on almost all industries and all areas of society. It offers better built, longer lasting, cleaner, safer, and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for industry in general.

Like electricity or computers before it, nanotech will offer greatly improved efficiency in almost every facet of life. But as a general-purpose technology, it will be dual-use, meaning it will have many commercial uses and it also will have many military uses -- making far more powerful weapons and tools of surveillance. Thus it represents not only wonderful benefits for humanity, but also grave risks.

A key understanding of nanotechnology is that it offers not just better products, but a vastly improved means of production. A computer can make copies of data files -- essentially as many copies as you want at little or no cost. It may be only a matter of time until the manufacture of products becomes as cheap as the copying of files. That's the real meaning of nanotechnology, and why it is sometimes seen as "the next industrial revolution."