CultusAs the technology expands, the real world is literally shrinking into a Global Village.
Nanotechnology as the new area of interest in technology is an umbrella term that covers many areas of research dealing with objects that are measured in nanometers or billionth of a meter, i.e. it is a hybrid science combining engineering and chemistry.
The goal of nanotechnology is to individually manipulate atoms and place them in a pattern to produce the desired structure. Nano-sized machines called assemblers, that can be programmed to manipulate atoms and molecules at will, are used to build consumer goods. Some nano-machines called replicators, are programmed to build assemblers.
Nanotechnology would enable the creation of new generation of computer components, that will have enormous storage capacity. The greatest impact of nanotechnology could be expected in the medical industry. Patients would drink fluids containing nanorobots programmed to attack and reconstruct the molecular structure of cancer cells and viruses to makes them harmless, and they could also be programmed to perform delicate surgeries.
For environmental clean-up, airborne nanorobots could be user programmed to rebuild the thinning ozone layer. Contaminants could be automatically removed from water sources, and spill could be cleaned up instantly.
Nanotechnology was first introduced in the distant 1959, in a talk by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, entitled “There’s plenty of room at the bottom”. Feynman proposed using a set of conventional-sized robot arms to construct a replica of themselves, one-tenth of the original size, then using that new set of arms to manufacture an even smaller set, and so on, until the molecular-scale is reached.
Many million or billions of such molecular-scale products built from individual molecules, create a “bottom-up manufacturing” technique, opposed to the usual technique of cutting away material, a completed component or product -“top-down manufacturing”.
If you would like to learn more Cousera offers basic course on nanotechnology for free
