Week 8 | Nanotechnology + Art

Nanotechnology was first used by Norie Taniguchi from Tokyo Univesity in a 1974 conference to describe semiconductor process such as thin film desposition and ion beam milling exhibiting characteristics control on the order of a nanometer. Nanotechnology gives people the ability to look closer to the nano world, where lie the answers to many problems hard to be solved. For example, nanotechnology improves chemical engineering by making chemical bonds tunable. By Scanning Tunneling Microscope, scientists are able to experiment chemical substance in a level of atom, which is exactly the same idea brought up by Richard Feynman that “the principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atoms”.

Another application of nanotechnology is in the field of nano-medicine, which includes nano-therapy and nano-treatment. One interesting example is that people can use nanodots to tag certain disease within animal body, thus trace and identify how the condition of disease evolve while during the treatment.

Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology is a landmark in the history of nanotechnology. Drexler imagines a world where the entire Library of Congress can fit on a chip the size of a sugar cube and where universal assemblers, tiny machines that can build objects atom by atom, will be used for everything from medicinal robots that help clear capillaries to environmental scrubbers to clear pollutants from the air. In the book, Drexler first proposes the gray goo scenario—his prediction of what might happen if molecular nanotechnology were used to build uncontrollable self-replicating machines.

Nanotechnology is the tool for scientist and artist to create a whole new world beyond people’s imagination. It vastly expands the potential of development of science and art, because now they could reach out the hands in a tiny yet fascinating and profound domain.

Citations:

1. CRN. N.p.. Web. 24 Nov 2013. <http://crnano.org/whatis.htm>.

2.  Jingna Zhao, ”Turning to Nanotechnology for Pollution Control.”  Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science., Feb 2009 Web. 24 Nov 2013. <http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/winter-2009/turning-to-nanotechnology-for-pollution-control-applications-of-nanoparticles#.UpHOREDa5a1>.

3. ”Engines of Creation.” . N.p.. Web. 24 Nov 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_of_Creation>.

4.  ”Nanotechnology.” . N.p.. Web. 24 Nov 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology>.

5.”Nanomedicine.” Wikipedia. N.p., 4 2012. Web. 24 Nov 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanomedicine>.