Hello From Madison, WI

September 14, 2008

For the first part of this week, I'm in Madison, WI (right), attending a nanotech conference specially designed for reporters. The conference, "Nano Meets Bio: The Risks and Rewards," is off to good start. I wasn't sure what to expect really. I've been to a lot of conferences in my day and they can sometimes be too sciency (read: booooring!) But the first talk, by Wendy Crone, associate professor in the dept of engineering, was anything but.

Crone spent her time getting us all familiar with the concept of nanotechnology. We humans are pretty dense about stuff we can't see. Out of sight, out of mind, don't cha know. So she had us do a little activity to put nanotech into perspective. She gave us all strips of paper about the length of a pencil and safety scissors (there was wine drinking, after all). She asked us to cut that strip in half, then cut that half in another half, then cut that half in half, etc., etc., and to see how far we could get. I could only do it 7 times. Granted I don't have the most delicate lotus-petal-like fingers in the world nor was I using the most advanced cutting technology. But the point became quickly tangible. I couldn't get that far and even though my mere spec of a paper was just that, mere, I would need another 20 snips or so for it to count as nano-sized.

Try it, if you don't believe me.

She made a lot of great points, namely that nano is small, and when things get down that small, they sometimes behave in ways that they don't on a larger scale. It's like the particles are on Las Vegas time or something. They become very volatile or change color or get drunk and blow all of their cab fare on the nickel slots.

Crone also pointed to a great graph (right) that originated in a 2001 report from Merrill Lynch, called "The Next Small Thing: An Introduction to Nanotechnology." It makes the point that, basically, nanotech is an innovation on par with the car and the computer. Today, the technology is new, we don't know too much about it, what it can do, how it will help or hurt us, the possibilities it will open up. In fifty years, it will be everywhere and like the hundreds of computers that surround us, we may not even think twice about its existence.

Photo: Jeff Miller, UW-Madison University Communications

Comments

[Mysterymeat]

Great write-up and this part had laughing out loud:

It's like the particles are on Las Vegas time or something. They become very volatile or change color or get drunk and blow all of their cab fare on the nickel slots.

Have you considered This American Life?