In 1959, renowned physicist Richard Feynman delivered a prophetic talk to colleagues. He pointed out that no law of nature exists that can prevent scientists from manipulating individual atoms and making almost any product imaginable. It was a bold prediction filled with mind-boggling applications ripped straight from the pages of a science fiction novel. In fact, you can already witness the startling power of nanotechnology in once-fantastical but now-possible tools, products, and services such as these:
- Smartphones: These ubiquitous devices add a multitude of features to a mobile phone, including a web browser, camera, media player, GPS unit, and energy-dense battery.
- Nano-packaged drugs: Synthetic nanostructures such as liposomes can deliver medication directly to diseased cells, avoiding damage to healthy tissues.
- Gold nanoparticles: Uniquely useful, nano-size particles of gold have applications ranging from inexpensive pregnancy tests to pathogen-killing treatments.
These and countless other developments are made possible by new techniques that operate at an inconceivably tiny scale. The nanoworld has now become a workshop for chemists, biologists, physicists, and engineers as they collaborate to create a flood of innovations that are defining 21st-century technology. Two prominent specialists, Professors Ted Sargent and Shana Kelley of the University of Toronto, team up to explore this exciting new frontier in Introduction to Nanotechnology: The New Science of Small. In 24 accessible and visually rich half-hour lectures, you get an in-depth explanation of nanotechnology and how it is possible to work in a domain that is nine orders of magnitude smaller than humans—comparable to the difference in scale between you and the sun. As smartphones get smarter, computers get faster, medical care gets better targeted, new materials with surprising properties appear, and the promise of unlimited clean energy seems within reach, the importance of nanotechnology in our lives will only increase. Introduction to Nanotechnology is your unrivaled guide to how we got here and where we're going. Professors Sargent and Kelley encourage you to be informed and stay tuned. It's going to be an exciting ride.
