Nanotechnology: leaping with tiny steps into the future
Steffi Friedrichs, The Technology Partnership
The discovery of novel features and properties in matter confined to nanometre size has created an unprecedented amount of world-wide hype, but also concern about potential sociological and environmental consequences: never before has a technology promised to impact so wide an area of life-depending and –enhancing technologies, while forecast to be so detrimentally disruptive to the existing industrial landscape. ‘What are we to believe?’, ‘What can we really expect from nanotechnology?’ and, most of all ‘What is this thing called nanotechnology that promises to solve every technological problem of modern life?’ are only a few of the many questions raised by nanotechnology.
This project introduced the underlying scientific phenomena of nanotechnology at a level suitable for GCSE students. It also highlighted some of the technological problems scientists and engineers encounter when conducting nanoscience and -technology, explaining why their innovations can only work on this length scale. In order to provide a ‘reality check’ for nanotechnology, vivid examples of the latest scientific and commercial breakthroughs were given in the form of movie clips, adverts and practical demonstrations.
For for information, see nanotechproject.org/44.
