The recent announcement that the University of Alberta has landed a $120 million nanotechnology research facility was mostly reported as an example of how the federal Liberals are trying to woo Albertans. Surprisingly little was said about nanotechnology itself (one commentator, in fact, referred to it simply as “nanotechnology–whatever that is.”)
Allow me to rectify that.
Nanotechnology is technology that operates on a scale measured in nanometres–billionths of a metre, or if you prefer, a millionths of a millimetre.
The ultimate goal of nanotechnology is nothing less than manipulating and constructing matter one atom at a time. The concept was first set forward in a speech in December, 1959, by Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, who said he could see nothing in the laws of physics that preclude humans manipulating individual atoms just as they manipulate large objects.
The notion remained largely unconsidered until Dr. K. Eric Drexler developed it further in 1977, when he was still just a student at MIT. His ideas were presented in a scientific journal in 1981 and in a book in 1986, and he taught the first university course on nanotechnology at Stanford in 1988.
The Holy Grail of nanotechnology is the “assembler,” a computer-controlled device which could literally pick up atoms and pop them into place to build molecules–including more assemblers.
We’re a long way from that, but we are discovering ways to make machines and other complex objects incredibly small, although most so-called “nanotechnology” today actually operates at a scale that, though tiny, is still huge when measured in nanometres.
A team of researchers at Osaka University, for instance, have created the smallest object every made by humans–a tiny sculpture of a bull the size of a human red blood cell, just 10 thousandths of a millimetre from horns to tail. The sculpture was created by two laser beams focused across resin that solidified wherever the two beams crossed.
The technique suggests a way to build micromachines that could, for example, be injected into a clogged blood vessel and guided by a surgeon to clean it out, or programmed to scour the body for cancer cells.
Other nanotechnology research currently underway could lead to materials to reduce the size, weight and power requirements of spacecraft (or anything else), manufacturing processes that minimize pollution, and pesticides molecularly engineered to biodegrade safely.
A more mundane type of nanotechnology is illustrated by a company called Nanophase Technologies, which has devised nano-sized zinc oxide particles for use in sunscreen. Because the particles are so small, they make the usually opaque cream transparent, while still blocking ultraviolet radiation.
In the computer world, IBM announced this week that its scientists have built the smallest-ever computer logic circuit, a two-transistor component made from a single molecule of carbon, a hollow strand called a nanotube that is 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. Nanotube techhnology is just one avenue computer scientists are pursuing in their quest to find a way to create computer smaller and more powerful than is physically possible using silicon.
Some researchers approach nanotchnology from a “top-down” approach, making existing technology smaller; others are taking the “bottom-up” approach, focusing on mimicking the existing ability of living cells to manipulate matter on the nano level. Cells, after all, turn food, water and air into skin, muscles, feathers, teeth and leaves. Perhaps we can create artificial devices that can accomplish similar feats.
If, some day, we do manage to build the fabled assembler, society will be altered forever. Assemblers could manufacture absolutely anything, from diamonds to houses to airplanes, cheaply and cleanly (no waste products, and existing pollution could soon be cleaned up–toxic waste is just so much raw material to an assembler).
Nanodevices could reduce the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and end global warming; produce supercomputers the size of a human cell; halt disease and aging; produce food enough for everyone in the world–oh, yeah, and completely destroy the economic system, because when everything becomes dirt cheap for everybody, nobody needs to work at anything they don’t want to–or at all, for that matter.
That’s the dream. The nightmare scenario? Nanorobots run amuck, dissolving the world (and its population) into “grey goo.”
Nanotechnology is in its infancy, but even if the assembler is never realized, the products and processes developed in its pursuit may well transform our lives.
Not a bad thing for the government to spend money on, if you ask me. Even in Alberta.
