Product Description
This title demystifies the topic for investors, business executives, and anyone interested in how molecule-sized machines and processes can transform our lives. Along with dispelling common myths, it covers nanotechnology's origins, how it will affect various industries, and the limitations it can overcome. This handy book also presents numerous applications such as scratch-proof glass, corrosion resistant paints, stain-free clothing, glare-reducing eyeglass coatings, drug delivery systems, medical diagnostic tools, burn and wound dressings, sugar-cube-sized computers, mini-portable power generators, even longer-lasting tennis balls, and more.

• Nanotechnology is the science of matter at the scale of one-billionth of a meter or 1/75,000th the size of a human hair
• Written in the accessible, humorous For Dummies style, this book demystifies nanotechnology for investors, business people, and anyone else interested in how molecule-sized machines and processes will soon transform our lives
• Investment in nanotechnology is exploding, with $3.7 billion in nanotechnology R&D spending authorized by the U.S. government in 2003 and international investment reported at over $2 billion

Customer Reviews (8)

Nanotechnology for Dummies
Booked arrived quicker than promised and in good condition also as promised.Good intro to the topic.

If You're Serious About Learning Nanotechnology...Look Elsewhere
If you want a 'fluff laden' book, then this one is for you; however, if you want to know more than just how to spell 'nanotechnology' you may want to look elsewhere.Remember, it is for Dummies.

out standing
I bought this book from amazon.com at very affordable price.
I got the book within a week. Book was in a very good shape like new.
I think it is wise to shop at Amazon.com

Nanomaterials, Nanointermediates, Nano-enabled products
Nanomaterials: nanoparticles, nanotubes, quantum dots, fullerense, dendrimers, nanoprorous materials.

Nanointermediates: coatins, fabrices, memory and logic chips, optical components

Nano-enabling products: finished goods for cars, clothing, airplaines, computers, video, pharmaceuticals, appliances.

I found the Lux Research Index reference interesting (LUXI). I read about companies building products like: Zyvex , Mems and Nanotechnology , Nanosys, Altair, NVE (spin state storage MRAM) , FEI (visualization systems), Veeco (data storage and semiconductor), and Accelrys.

Hurdles: 1. Cost. The smaller the product being worked on, the more sophisticated and expensive the equipment needed to monitor quality control. 2. Availability. The equipment needed to producing nanomaterials may not be readily available or could be expensive. 3. Regulatory barriers. Evaluations and government approvals are needed to bring products such as a new drug to market, this takes time and time to market means sunk costs.

Growth: "Nanotechnology is likely to become a trillion-dollar industry in less than ten years." If this is true the Nanotech indexes reflect the exponential growth explosion. The time required for manufacturing process transform suggests companies are making purchases now and generating capital nanotechnology projects. For example, Toyota should be in the process of covering major sections of their car production lines to use nanomaterials. It may be true that no process modification is required and that raw materials can be substituted for nanomaterials. This is the best scenerio. If nanotechnology is too emerge it could start with a series of new companies that will create radical and disruptive technology.

Nanotubes: Researchers found that by adding a few percentage points of vaporized nichkel nanoparticels to the vaporized carbon, they could make as nanotubes as buckyballs. There are three methods for producing nanotubes: 1. High-pressure carbon monoxide deposition, HiPCO. This method involves a heated chamber which carbon monoxide molecules gas and small clusters of iron atoms flow. When the carbon monoxide molecules lands on the iron clusters and the iron acts as a catalyst breaking the molecule into carbon and oxygen. The result is a carbon nanotube and Carbon dioxide. The second method is called chemical-vapor deposition, CVD. In this method a hydrocarbon, such as, methane flows into a heated chamber coated with an iron catalyst. The high temperature causes the carbon and hydrogen break apart. The carbon atoms attach to the catalyst particles forming a nanotube. The third methods uses plasma torch to break apart hydrocarbon producing nanotubes.

Nanotube have three topology arrangements: armchair, zigzag, and Chiral. Nanotubes are elastic and strong. Nanotubes conduct heat and cold very well. A nanotube can be either metallic or semiconducting. A nanotube is metallic I the energy level that allows delocalized electrons t flow between atoms throughout the nanotube is right above the energy level used by electrons attached. A nanotube is semiconducting if the energy level of the conduction band is high enough sou that there is an energy gap between it and the valence band. Nanotubes will provide more efficient energy transmission and faster and more power computers. Nanotube tensile strength (GPa)=200, Young's modulus(GPa)=1000, and density=2.

Nanowire: Researchers have demonstrated using nanowires to create memory devices and transistors. A nanowire crosslatched arrangement will be able to store 40 gigabits per square centimeter.

Polymer composites: "Scientist at University of Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a unique self-healing composite. It involves dispersing microcapsules and catalyst within the composite. When the catalyst comes in contact with the healing agent inside the microcapsule, the healing agent polymerizes and hardens." Heals microcracks resulting from temperature changes or pressures of mechnical loading.

NanoTransistor: A transistor is the switch that says whether a bit is 0 or 1. Think of a water dam. In the off position no water is flowing through and on the water is flowing, electrons are flowing freely. The smaller the transistor, the smaller your electron gate-which means faster switching between on and off, resulting in a faster overall processor.

Photoelectrochemical hydrogen extraction:A photoelectrochemical device is a 30 nm layer of nanoparticles placed on a conductive glass.The nanoparticles are composed of semi-conducting oxides.The conducting glass is connected to an electrode.The space between electrode and nanoparticle film and conductive glass is filled with water.Light strikes the layer of nanoparticles knocking the electron's loose. Those electrons move through the conducting glass layer to the metal electrode putting a negative charge in it.You have a layer of nanoparticles that electrons are rushing out and a nearby metal electrode that electrons are rushing in. Hydrogen is emitted. (Hydrogen Solar Ltd)

Nanotech Movers and Shakers: Richard Smalley , Charles Lieber , Jongjie Dai , James Heath , James Von Her , George Whitesides , Paul Alivisatos , Angela Belcher , and Richard Feyman and Eric Drexler .

The best book on nanotechnology
Before reading this book, I didn't know, nor did I care about nanotechnology. But now, I see all the applications of it in every day life! ... Read more

Product Description

Inside the Emerging Multibillion-Dollar Nanotechnology Industry

Suddenly, nanotechnology isn't science fiction or mere theory: It's becoming one of the world's fastest-growing, highest-impact industries. In Nanotechnology: Science, Innovation, and Opportunity, the field's leading experts offer an up-to-the-minute briefing on where the industry stands now, how it will unfold over the coming decade, and how it will impact you.

Edited by a key industry advisor, this book covers the latest in nanotech science, technology, and applications. You'll meet the key players, and discover nanotech at work in fields ranging from drug delivery to energy efficiency. Here are the opportunities, the challenges, and the implications: all you need to know about today's nanotech business--and tomorrow's.

Coverage includes

• How the convergence of nanoscale science foreshadows revolutionary societal change
• Technical and business obstacles that still challenge the industry
• Lessons from the early "gold rush" days of biotech: managing the hype
• Nanotech as disruptive innovation: implications for investors and venture capitalists
• The evolving roles of entrepreneurs, universities, and the U.S. government
• Key application areas: materials, microelectronics, sensors, energy, and beyond
• Bio-Nano-Information fusion: the potential to transform medicine
• Relevant patent law and intellectual property issues
• The ethics of nanotechnology

"A fascinating look at the art and science of nanotechnology. Hold on to your hats, the world is about to change big time. . . . A comprehensive look at nanotechnology from the perspective of science, investment, IP, and business development with a healthy dose of vision for good measure. First-rate authors with an excellent presentation of the material. Buy this book."
--David Bishop, Ph.D., V.P. of Nanotechnology Research, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies

"An absolute must-read for every technology sector being impacted by nanotechnology. This book presents the true value of these technologies, delivering a comprehensive prospectus on the science to commercialization of nanotechnology."
--Matthew Laudon, Ph.D., Executive Director, Nano Science & Technology Institute

"This is an excellent book for anyone trying to get a general grasp on the emerging science and technology of nanotechnology in particular for business executives, engineers, or entrepreneurs who are trying to decide what this technology can mean to them."
--Charles H. Volk, Ph.D., V.P. & Chief Technologist, Northrop Grumman, Navigation Systems Division

"Larry Gilbert and Michael Krieger's overview of the university technology transfer process is excellent and provides a realistic perspective and understanding of the commercialization process for technologies developed in the academic environment."
--John Ritter, Director, Office of Technology Licensing, Princeton University

"For a broad, readable introduction to nanotechnology with its attendant entrepreneurial, social, and technological implications, this book is a great start. The most interesting chapter from my perspective was Smalley's on finding abundant, cheap energy sources. Most informative and refreshing. If you have an interest as an intelligent layperson in nanotechnology and its basic motivations and methods, this book will serve as a worthy point of departure in your search."
--Mark S. Petrovic, Ph.D., V.P. of Research and Development, EarthLink

"Get this book if you want to explore any part or the whole field of nanotechnology. I was interested in the many sources of funding for nanotechnology and why each source was doing it. The authors have shown an awareness that nanotechnology must be nurtured by dedicated people to achieve its real potential.
I recommend this book because it treats the potential of nanotechnology in depth and realistically: Riches will come, but much effort is needed in the meantime."
--Bill McLellan, winner of Richard Feynman's Nanotechnology Challenge

Contributors:

Foreword by Senators Joseph Lieberman and George Allen

1. Lessons in Innovation and Commercialization from the Biotechnology Revolution:

Gerald Gallwas, Beckman Instruments

2. Nanotechnology and Our Energy Challenge: Dr. Richard Smalley, Rice University

3. Fads & Hype in Technology: The Sargasso Sea of ‘Some Day Soon’: Peter Coffee, eWeek

4. Nanotechnology Commercialization: Steve Jurvetson, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

5. Investment in Nanotechnology: Dr. Daniel Leff, Harris & Harris Doug Moffat, Moffat Capital

6. Role of the U.S. Government in Nanoscale Science and Technology: Geoff Holdridge, National 7. Nanotechnology Coordination Office and WTEC, Inc.

8. Overview of US Academic Research: Dr. Julie Chen, University of Massachusetts Lowell

9. Understanding University Technology Transfer for Nanotechnology: Larry Gilbert, Caltech, Dr. Michael Krieger, UCLA

10. Intellectual Property Policy and Impact: Chinh Pham, Greenberg Traurig, Charles Berman, Greenberg Traurig

11. Entrepreneurs: Jeff Lawrence, Trillium Digital Systems, Larry Bock, Nanosys

12. Major Corporations: Technology, Business and the Culture of Opportunity: Jim Duncan, Meggitt PLC

13. Nanotechnology in Federal Laboratories: Dr. Meyya Meyyapan, NASA Ames Laboratory

14. Nanoscale Materials: Dr. Mark Reed, Yale, Dr. ZL Wang, Georgia Tech, Dr. Brent Segal, Nantero Dr. Sheryl Ehrman, Maryland, Fiona Case, Case Scientific

15. Nanotechnology-Enabled Sensors: Dr. David Nagel, George Washington University, Dr. Sharon Smith, Lockheed Martin Microelectronics, Dr. Stephen Goodnick, Arizona State, Dr. George Thompson, Intel, Dr. Axel Scherer, Caltech

16. Drug Delivery: Dr. Suzie Pun, University of Washington, Dr. JJ Cheng, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

17. Bio-Nano-Information Fusion: Dr. Chih-Ming Ho, UCLA, Dr. Dean Ho, UCLA, Dan Garcia, UCLA

18. Convergence and Integration: Dr. Mike Roco, National Science Foundation

19. Ethical Considerations in the advance of Nanotechnology, Dr. Bill

Customer Reviews (8)

paperback instead of book
I RECEIVED A SMALL PRINT/ SMALL FONT PAPERBACK
INSTEAD OF THE BOOK I ORDERED.
I PAID BOOK PRICE.

great read
Despite possessing a degree in engineering, I have no formal training in any branch of nanotechnology. That didn't matter. Each essay was very well written and provided great insight into the promising world of nanoscience. I particularly enjoyed the writings pertaining to business applications and intellectual property rights. The final essays are dedicated to the nitty-gritty science behind the hype. These are where the inexperienced might become a little lost, but with a little thought (and maybe some google searches) most readers should come away with a good feel for what nano has to offer both now and in the future. For a real good knowledge rundown of nanoscience and its potential applications, I would highly recommend Nanotechnology for Dummies by Richard Booker.

The latest, by the nation's leading experts
Nanotechnology is promising to revolutionize many businesses and while some of this is touched upon in other books, most focus on the science involved. NANOTECHNOLOGY: SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND OPPORTUNITY gathers writings by the field's leading experts to provide the latest facts, edits the information by a key industry advisor, and surveys everything from social change implications and business obstacles and hype. Much more wide-ranging than most, it links the emerging science to key issues not just in science and ethics but reaching into the business development world.

Practical roadmap to the future
Foster's book, with entries by some of the leading players in the field, is an invaluable resource for anyone trying to understand not just the science behind nanotechnology (actually, a number of different scientific areas), but its implications for the future of technology and how we'll get there from here. An outstanding and timely resource - if you want to understand the nano sector today, and where it's going, you have to read it.

Excellent Book!
This is a great overview of a rapidly growing and important technology field.It is good for those who are familiar with research and business developments in the area as well as a great introduction for those who would like to know more about what nanotechnology is all about. ... Read more

Product Description
In Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea, nanotech pioneer Mark Ratner and tech entrepreneur Daniel Ratner show how nanotech works, what's new, what's next, and why nanotech may be the next $1 trillion industry. They survey every area of R&D: nanobots, quantum and DNA computing, nanosensors, biostructures, neuro-electronic interfaces, molecular motors, and much more. Simple, brief, and nearly math-free, this is the perfect briefing on nanotech technology and business for every non-technical reader. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Great Book!
This book is so great if you are not a professional or not that much into deep information about the subject but it suggests some books for those interested in more deep information, but as I said if u r not a professional u will get the whole idea about the nanotechnology :D

One of Three Best Reads for Beginners to Nanotechnology
The discipline of Nanotechnology, as galmorous as it may sound in the media, can be very complex and confusing for a beginner when it comes to understanding and making sense of it. The follwoing three books can help a beginner to ease into this otherwise wonderful field:
1. This Book: Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea. This book introduces both aspects of nanotechnology: science and business. Most of the basic concepts of nanotechnology are covered in a simple way. You don't need to have any technical background to understand this book.The concepts are presented in such a way that they can be understood by readers of all backgrounds. On one hand it takes nontechnical readers on board, and at the same time it does not bore the technical readers either. With practical examples, you get a very good sense of what nanotechnology is up to.
2. Gateway to Nanotechnology: An Introduction to Nanotechnology for Beginner Students and Professionals. This book is written in the format of lecture notes; but very much self contained. Very good introduction to nanotechnology; presents simple exercises with solutions. It's printed in colors. By showing you how different fields have come together to give rise to the field of nanotechnology, it does an excellent job in deevloping the big picture of nanotechnology. In a very concise way, the book covers a wide spectrum of topics in nanotechnology including science behind nanotechnology; nanomaterial characterization; nanofabrication; nanooptics; Nanoelectronics; Nanobiotechnology; business and applications of nanotechnology; and environmental, health, and safety implications of nanotechnology. It provides more technical depth on topics than Ratner's book does. This book combined with Ratner's book will really make your entry into the field of Nanotechnology.

3. Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology This classic written by a visionary is a must for anyone interested in nanotechnology. This book not only visioned the development of nanotechnology it also acted as a catalyst for such development.

An excellent introduction to nanotechnology
Anybody without a technical background may be easily swayed by all the hype surrounding nanotechnology. Yes, nanotechnology does hold a lot of promise. But let's separate fact from fiction. "Nanotechnology, A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea" helps us do that. Co-authored by nanotech pioneer Mark Ratner, this book provides an easy to understand introduction to nanotechnology. It is for the non-technical reader wishing to gain a good understanding of this subject. Overall, the book presents scientific concepts in a way that can be understood by readers of any background. It uses graphics and pictures to illustrate certain ideas. It gives you just enough scientific background in order to understand how nanotechnology can be used in various types of applications ranging from computer chips to suntan lotion.

Nanotechnology is a multi-disciplinary field encompassing chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and a host of other applied sciences. In order to understand it, one needs to have a background in atoms and molecules. The book is successful in giving the reader this basic knowledge.

The authors do a good job in presenting scientific concepts in a way that ordinary readers will be able to relate to. For example, in order to explain how research in nanotechnology can further improve the way we harness the power of the sun, the authors had to explain photosynthesis. They did a good job in doing this that even a person far removed from his/her high school biology class will be able to understand it.

Overall, the book achieves its purpose of introducing the non-technical reader to nanotechnology. The writers' style of writing is lucid but at the same time engaging. Their method of describing everyday things familiar to us and relating these to the technical aspects of nanotechnology was very effective in explaining scientific concepts. The book covers a broad range of scientific fields reflecting nanotechnology's multi-disciplinary nature. After reading the book, a reader would have enough knowledge to discern what is fact and what is fiction.

An updated edition of the book is now warranted. New developments in this field have occurred since the book was published. Intel, for one, has already demonstrated its 32nm-based microprocessor.At the time the book was written, the existing chip technology that the authors mentioned was 130nm.Even with some examples already outdated though, I would highly recommend the book to anyone wishing to get a good understanding of nanotechnology. This book is truly a "Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea".

Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea
Good book for begginers.It starts simple and build you up.Not too many hard conecpts.

Medical: Quantam Dots, Colloids, Cantilevers, Dendrimers, Nanoshells
Quantum Dots contain only a few hundred atoms.Because the electrons in a quantum dot are confined to widely separated energy levels, the dot emits only one wavelength of light when excited.The size of the dot determines its electronic, magnetic, and optical properties.Quantum Dot Corporation has developed a QD cadmium selenide nanoparticle for use as biological labels.Researchers can tag proteins and nucleic acids with QD and illuminate them with ultraviolet light and the crystal will fluoresce at a specific wavelength and show the location of attached proteins.How does a QD work? An organic dye molecule absorbs only photons of light with just the right energy to lift its electrons from their quiescent state to one of the higher levels available to them.The incident light must be exactly the right wavelength or color.The molecule will emit a photon when the electron falls to a lower energy level.

Colloids: nanoparticles in suspension.IBM is exploring using colloids to build ultrahigh density data storage.IBM is using colloids containing magnetic nanoparticles 3 nm across, each composing of about 1,000 iron and platinum atoms.The colloid is spread on a surface and the solvent allowed to evaporate and these nanoparticles crytalize into 2 or 3 dimensional arrays.These arrays could hold trillions of bits per square inch.

Cantilevers:IBM is exploring using atomic force microscopes to screen samples for certain genetic sequences.They attach short strands of DNA to the tops of cantilevers.When genetic material carrying a complementary sequence binds to the anchored strands, it induces a surface stress, which bends the cantilevers subtly, by use nanometers, but enough for detection.

Dendrimers:An dendrimer is an artifical molecule.Dendrimers are globular molecules about the size of a typical protein, but they do not come apart or unfold because they are held together with stronger chemical bonds.Dendrimers can be engineered to transport DNA into cells for gene therapy.Dendrimers offer control.It may be possible to design dendrimers that spontaneously swell and liberate their contents oly when the appropriate trigger molecules are present. This ability would allow a custom-made dendrimer to release its load of drugs I just the tissues or organs needing treatment.

Nanoshells: Nanoshells are extremely small beads of glass coated with gold.Nanoshells capture energy in near-infrared fashion.Such a nanoshell could be made to deliver drug molecules at specific times by attaching it to a capsule made of heat-sensitive polymer.The capsule would release its contents only when gentle heating of the attached nonshell caused it to deform.Another more dramatic application envisions connecting nanoshells with antibodies.The antibodies attach to the tumor cells and the nanoshells are heated using high power infrared sufficiently to destroy the cancer cells, while leaving nearby tissue unharmed.
... Read more

Product Description
Taken from the Greek, nano means 'one billionth part of' a whole; or very, very small. Nanotechnology is the next step after miniaturization. This book explores the cutting edge of a new technology that will find usage in almost every single aspect of modern society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Nonetechnology is cool!
Good book for a common reader. It is not very scientific, but gives a good understanding of what nanotechnology is and where it applies. I am a scientist who currently works in this field, and even for me it was interesting to see this kind of simple prospective without too many details.

Understanding Nanotechnology, a compilation of articles from Scientific American
"Understanding Technology", a compilation of articles from Scientific American, is an excellent book for the layperson to find out about nanotechnology.It's not too lofty or heavily technical - a big help in introducing someone to this field who might not have a background in science.Very readable and interesting.Unfortunately, the field of nanotech is changing so rapidly that many discoveries have been made since this book wasfirst published.

Nanostructures Boast Superior Results
Nano structures boast superior electrical, chemical, mechanical, or optical properties.Improvements may include circuit lines less than 100 nanometers in distance and nanoelectronic devices replacing existing electronic devices.

In 1987, Theordore A Fulton and Gerald J. Dolan of Bell Laboratories constructed the first single electron transfer.It had the advantage of low power usage and heat leapfrogging past the 2014 heat problem.In 1998 Cees Dekker's group at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands created a transistor from a carbon nanotube.In 1999, James M Tour and Mark A Reed demonstrated that single molecules could act as molecular switches.Exxon Mobile created Zeolites, minerals with pores of less than a nanometer which serve as an effective catalyst to break down or crack large hydrocarbon molecules to form gasoline.

Nanotech's vision is to assemble complex machines and circuits atom by atom.The author predicts the top down approach will be the most likely method of choice for building complex devices (electronbeam lithography, Zyvex, Quantum Dot Corporation)

Nanomechanical signal processing is constructed from a million nanomechanical elements with the advantage of only dispating a millionth of a watt of energy.Low powered Nanomechanical devices will create a proliferation and distribution of cheap, ultraminiture smart sensors.

A good introduction
If you want to know what Nanothechnology is this book will tell you. It is aimed at the "intelligent layman" and as such succeeds rather well.

I found it easier going from a stylistic point of view than Ratner's "Nanothechnology: Gentle Introduction to the next big idea". If I were to buy only one of them I should buy this one.

An excellent introduction for the new technological bang
Materials Science usually offers an unique opportunity to test our scientific models. The search for new properties in the mesoscopic realm has open such expectatives in several scientific fields -from physics and chemistry to biology and medicine- that an introductory text is a great help in order to obtain a wide view of the next scientific and technological trends. Scientific American has made this recopilation of several essays that bring together the main ideas for the new technological revolution, at a level usefull for the expert and understandable for the lay man. As a Materials Scientist I enthusiastically recommend it. ... Read more

Product Description
Enthusiasts look forward to a time when tiny machines reassemble matter and process information with unparalleled power and precision. But is their vision realistic? Where is the science heading? As nanotechnology (a new technology that many believe will transform society in the next on hundred years) rises higher in the news agenda and popular consciousness, there is a real need for a book which discusses clearly the science on which this technology will be based. While it is most easy to simply imagine these tiny machines as scaled-down versions of the macroscopic machines we are all familiar with, the way things behave on small scales is quite different to the way they behave on large scales. Engineering on the nanoscale will use very different principles to those we are used to in our everyday lives, and the materials used in nanotehnology will be soft and mutable, rather than hard and unyielding.

Soft Machines explains in a lively and very accessible manner why the nanoworld is so different to the macro-world which we are all familiar with. Why does nature engineer things in the way it does, and how can we learn to use these unfamiliar principles to create valuable new materials and artefacts which will have a profound effect on medicine, electronics, energy and the environment in the twenty-first century. With a firmer understanding of the likely relationship between nanotechnology and nature itself, we can gain a much clearer notion of what dangers this powerful technology may potentially pose, as well as come to realize that nanotechnology will have more in common with biology than with conventional engineering.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Fresh Book
This book provides a refreshing view of Nanotechnology. I recommend it to anyone that wants to read about Nanotech, as one of the first "must read" in the subject. Well explained, it is really going to take you on a nice journey to that fascinating small world.

Supurb analysis of nanotec possibilities AND limitations
Before reading this book I was familiar with the conjecture that MNT (molecular nano-technology)devices will tend to be more like nonascale biological components than macroscale machines and suspected there was some truth to it. This book tends to confirm that hypothesis but gives so much more and in such readable detail.

An advantage is that the author, Jones, is not a biologist but a physist, and his approack deals with the physical phenomina of brownian motion (shaking by thermally excited molicules), surface effects like van der Walls forces and viscosity, and the ways these forces can be taken advantage of rather than fought by unconventional machine components like shape changing molicules for valves and isothermal motors at this scale.

Jones and colleagues are themselves involved with development of nanoscale motors using these techniques and the book also covers the equally weird information processing and transductiondevices which are likely to be most useful at this size range, again emphysizing similarities to biocomponents but by no means suggesting that we limit ourselves to slavishly using or copying them.

Later in the book he does get into the physical limitations of the dimonoid assemblers and such originally proposed by Eric Drexler, but this book is by no means simply a put down of another researcher's ideas or cat fight between them.

As a view of what short and medium term MNT is likely to be like I can not think of a better source. While this text uses little mathematics it does manage to rigorously lay out the underlying physical laws that will limit some types of construction at this size range but also provide some new and almost magic seeming possibilities.

Over-all I would say this book contains les "hype" about nanotechnology than any I have come across, presenting facts instead.

plenty of room at the bottom, but it's sticky and shaky
What is nanotechnology? Much of what has fallen under that label has been incremental extension of established engineering practices and technologies to the nanoscale, e.g. improvements in planar silicon fabrication. How much longer can this continue? A more radical vision is that of K. Eric Drexler and his followers, who foresee precise positional control and construction of "assemblers" and "nanofactories" based on the chemistry of carbon. Is this vision -- which spawned much speculative literature and the grey goo scenario of out of control replicators -- feasible?

Jones argues that a wholly different approach will have to be adopted -- an approach suited to the peculiar physics of the nanoscale, where fluctuations and Brownian motion dominate, where surfaces are sticky, and where even quantum field theory (in the Casimir effect) conspires to frustrate the Drexlerian machinist.

Rather than try to work around the physics of the nanoscale, Jones proposes that we use it to our advantage -- just as biological soft "nanotechnology" does. Brownian motion and adhesion energy, for instance, make self-assembly possible. Just as proteins spontaneously fold to their native conformations and just as lipid membranes spontaneously assemble and fold into liposomes, we can design molecules to spontaneously achieve useful three dimensional conformations. We can imitate proteins by coupling conformational changes to molecular recognition and environmental changes, the principle which makes a host of protein activities -- signaling, sensing, catalysis -- possible. While traditional Carnot heat engines fail on the nanoscale, we are now beginning to understand the principles of isothermal molecular motors, such as those used for intracellular transport.

I very much recommend this book for its synoptic overview of current nanotechnology and the challenges facing it. Explanations of physical principles are clear and precise, and would benefit the layman and the researcher alike. Jones has much else to say about evolution, systems biology, silicon vs. single molecule electronics, etc. I only regret that he only cursorily discusses bionanotechnology (as opposed to biomimetic synthetic nanotechnology), i.e. what he calls the "Mad Max" approach of stripping down and reengineering working biological nanosystems, which he only introduces in the last chapter. He rightly is concerned about public opposition and even unforeseen consequences of this approach, but I would like to know more about what it has made possible.

Still, I very much recommend this underappreciated book (no reviews yet?) which I think is on par with Purcell's paper "Life at Low Reynolds Number" and Vogel's "Life's Devices" -- a science writing gem. ... Read more

Product Description
This brilliant work heralds the new age of nanotechnology, which will give us thorough and inexpensive control of the structure of matter.  Drexler examines the enormous implications of these developments for medicine, the economy, and the environment, and makes astounding yet well-founded projections for the future. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (46)

Welcome to "Logan's Run"
Eric 'Kim' Drexler(he doesn't like being called Kim; thinks its sissy) spends about two chapters explaining his idea - the first and fourth.He then makes connections with much of the rest of the human condition throughout the rest of the book; i mean he puts his(more or less; Feynman talked about it first before anyone else around 1959 - just two years after Sputnik!) idea in the timeline of life and then thought.He then goes on to talk about thought and what the this A.I./nanotech combo can do to the world(at the time, A.I, and Nanotech were probably the two biggest possible futuristic ideas not talked about outside of space travel; today, quantum computers are giving the 'drexlerian' vision a run for its money; this is one of the big reasons I give Drexler's book three stars; it's getting more and more out of date every year; as he says, no book can possibly be perfect; so, i've been taking his advice to heart in much of the other reviews i've done on amazon; add four stars minus 'out of date', and I give it a three stars!).It's kind of curious how he tries to relate his nanotech vision to everything; because, it seems to me, his ideas about intelligence are almost purelly atomic facts.

He uses much of Marvin Minsky(a guy who's immortalized in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 oh by the way!) ideas in his understanding of A.I.But, after that it just seems to be all atomic facts to him. As Jacob Bronowski would explain it, Drexler's idea of science is purely data graphs with lines matching those data points(approximately).There's no understanding of how everything in the universe is a structure.This after his heavily mechanical viewpoint!Basicaly, he's contradicted himself right there!Let me just point out that mathematics is an abstraction. Abstraction is about common forms of different structures. I mean 2 and 4/2 are two different forms of the same abstractoin - namely, the number two.Eric goes on to argue that we should try to get the facts straight by means of fact forums and hypertext.

He thinks that because the world doesn't come all linearly, that our knowledge base should. He points out that our duedecimal system is primitive.I'm not going to argue that; but, it just seems to me that just like our teachers say that we shouldn't try to memorize eveyr fact, we should deduce them; well, I think we should likewise work to come to mathematize the world.I find that Jacob Bronowski is a good place to start. I've tried to point these things to Drexler's followers; but, they don't seem to like this.They seem to get disquieted.Their hearts start going pitter-patter . . . kidding just a little bit.They talk amongst themselves(i'm assuming since they don't seem to want to reply; i guess I can say whatever I want to!)

I remember reading Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions", and It seemed to me that if he had just figured out how mathematics works(as Jacob Bronowski), he'd understand all those historical 'atomic' facts a lot better.I'd say much the same for Drexler and even Marvin Minksky.I read Minsky's "Socety of Mind", and I'm just like almost every section . . . he just misses abstraction.I mean not only is Eric Drexler out of date to no fault of his own with the whole quantum technologies thing, but he draws things up without a true unified understanding from the very start.

Not only has he not questioned those assumptions, but he seems to have picked up on various social games.I mean at the end of the book, he puts the carret over your head by saying, "now you know about nanotechnology, now you must follow me and spread the gospel(figuratively speaking).Reminds me of various religious people saying "believe and you will believe."He knows how to play the guilt game!

Not only that, it just seems to me(yea, I know), that the social thing today is to not rock the boat; to not be free to point out logic(more like illogic) and wrong facts by just kind of being vague and saying you are all things to all people(1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (New International Version)

19Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.).I mean I remember this one comedy skit shown to me this one time(wish I knew who did this so i can reference it); some guy living in an apartment gets a knock on his door, so he goes to answer it, and a christian standing there saying all he has to say about his religion; so, the guy who's just living along in his apartment goes and gets his cross, and the christian is satisfied and goes away; the poor guy goes back to watching t.v.He gets another knock on his door; he opens is and some Jew is standing there, so he looks to his left again and finds his jewish religion symbol(whichever symbol); he shows the Jew, and the Jew is satisfied and goes away; the poor guy tries to sit down to watching his t.v. and gets another knock on the door; this time its a muslim; this time, the poor guy is shaking, eyes on the eyes of the Muslim while he reaches to his left to grab for his Muslim religious symbol, fearfull of breathing wrong or moving to fast; shows him him his muslim symbol, shaking like a tree; the muslim grunts and goes away; the poor guy lands in his chair all sweaty and breathing hard.

You think this is just a skit?Wrong!I was watching some youtube about Ephesis or some other Greek colony, and the guy is talking about how the people of Athens had a statue for every other people's gods to appease all these other cultures that woudl come to see Athens or trade with them.

People are fear mongers; instead of thinking, hmm, you had a point there, they fear monger.They start with some mumbo-jumbo about how everyone is right at the same time to maybe end the conversation; if that doesn't work, they resort to fear mongering. I've tried to point these things out to first Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder; but, like I said, they seem to me to be fear itself!I went to Drexler about; no reply; i've gove much further in my frustrations with the refusal to reason, and they still won't reply!

See, Drexler and his group want to make a single government world order. And, they dont' want anybody to get off this planet . . . forever.Number one(assuming you know enough contemporary science), you know this isn't physically a good idea; galaxies collide, supernova go off; and yes, if CRN(center for responsbile nanotechnology) gets their way, nobody will get off this planet in billions of years; nobody will speak out about the truths of religion, and religion will say how staying confined is a good idea because otherwise there will be freedom of thought(this last part is actually number two).

Then, they start talking about disruptive technologies.They're saying how if super-advanced technologies enter the marketplace, that it will essentially cause an economic depression.Well, considering that they want to erase all nation-state lines and bring everybody under one world government order, this is exactly what they should want!Not to mention this would solve the industrial war machine backlash because the whole world order will have gone to the pits; nobody would be doing anything; about the only waring to worry about is everybody shooting each other at the shopping centers and foodmart(I'm forgetting the word for a moment; something like grossry store; anyway); and that can be handled by those with the molecular nanotechnology(assuming that what they want to do is save everyone.)These guys can't see any of this logic because they don't like logic.I'm revealing all this because I don't much care to be socialy bound up for billions of years unable to think and explore the universe because of political correctness(because people learn to act up when proven wrong).

Legendary. Maybe impossible.
I read several books on nanotechnology that were both more recent and more technically realistic, but this bookwowed me with both breadth and depth of vision. Few tomes compare in scope - Godel, Escher, and Bach perhaps? Ending Aging? There presently isn't anything like the clarion call to nanoscale research that this book represents, and it is not a definitive historical artifact for nothing.

This is about the best overview of the conceptual space of nanotechnology you can get right now - even after 24+ years. It's brilliant, it's conscise, it's visionary. It *is* a little much. Accept that and enjoy, and it may become your favorite popular science book.

I think much of what Drexler proposes is impossible - as impossible as full human consciousness emulation and interstellar travel anyway. It seems to annoy or overwhelm some readers that Drexler goes so far. It bothered me every now and then. Given a century or three, who knows. It's dubious science, as it reaches beyond tested theories, but it is *great* hard science fiction. Plenty of real science, and I found nothing truly erroneous.

If you are looking for something grittier, Drexler's newer books (and work) build on this. For second opinions I recommend Soft Machines and Nanomedicine: basic capabilities - they are more scholarship oriented. Read Engines first: it's hard to put down and it covers so much.

If you are interested in nanotechnology, read this book.
That is all.

best book I have ever read
This book was great and has changed my life. It has changed how I think and helped to make me more optimistic about our future.

Engines of nanotechnology
I was actually expecting that this book would fulfill my expectations, on account of a large number of citations I've seen. It's absolutely prerequisite lecture to anyone who's interested in the nano perspectives.

Watershed book on the transhumanist movement
Engines of Creation describes the foundations of and the issues surrounding humankind's increasing potential for building molecular machines. (Indeed as we stand here on the verge of 2008, notable accomplishments in nanotechnology continue to be made.) Drexler's "starter kit" comprises what he calls "universal assemblers," which are nanomachines designed for a simple task, such as replacing defective genetic links with healthful ones or bonding one cellular structure to another.

...I'm impressed with what the author and his peers have deeply pondered on preventing nanotechnological disasters, either from accident or from conscious intention of some malefactor. When one realizes a technology that can terraform planets can also readily destroy them... and us, one becomes a bit careful in how the technology is handled. The entire Part 3 of Drexler's book, "Engines of Destruction," is devoted to this issue.

...

For my complete review of this book and for other book and movie
reviews, please visit my site [...]

Brian Wright
Copyright 2007
... Read more

Product Description
What do a drought in New York and an earthquake in Seattle have to do with a "nanotube" a few billionths of a meter long at the University of Tokyo?

Our Molecular Future reveals a striking new possibility: We are on the verge of being able to protect ourselves from nature’s worst attacks. Tools such as carbon nanotubes may help us cope in ways that until now have been described as science fiction.

If we succeed, we might solve a troubling question about scientific research: Why risk it? Why risk powerful new technologies that may destroy us?

With compelling evidence, Douglas Mulhall shows that the answers to such questions may be found by focusing on what the environment does to us, rather than only what we do to the environment.

His book shows where our technologies might be heading, what may stop us from getting there, and how to use the benefits to minimize the downsides.

The good news is that we may enter a future that's so fantastic, it's unbelievable.

The bad news is that many of us don't believe it, and so we may not be ready to cope.

By revealing the threads that tie our fate to new technologies, this book helps us get ready.

First, we have to ask the right questions. Mulhall emphasizes that this book defines those questions, rather than pretending to have quick or detailed answers.

Here are examples:

Molecular technologies aren’t just confined to a few university think tanks. Nor are they confined to an elite among the superpowers, big business, or government. Their roots are embedded in the fabric of our industries, research institutes, and military. They are found in wealthy and poor nations alike. The foundations for these technologies are so pervasive that it’s hard to describe them without starting an encyclopedia.

Our Molecular Future condenses this knowledge and gives us broad overviews of who’s doing what, where. By so doing, the book shows us why these technologies pose such deep challenges to conventional thinking about business and environment.

Yet, how vulnerable is this technological juggernaut to being thrown backward or blasted down the wrong path by nature’s violent attacks?

In ninety seconds, the Great Kanto Earthquake annihilated Japan’s centralized economy in 1923. It was so severe that the country was in no shape to weather the Great Depression. Such instability helped open the door for a military government. After the military took over, war in Southeast Asia—and then the Pacific—broke out.

Might this recur today? What about similar such risks in America? What if the largest earthquake in America’s history was to hit again? Surprisingly, it didn’t occur in San Francisco, or on the quake-prone West Coast. Our Molecular Future reveals the location and the implications.

Property loss is increasing worldwide, due to unrestricted development in risky hurricane and earthquake zones. Perversely, this can actually improve economic conditions for some sectors in the short term, by fueling construction booms after disasters. Such short-term rebounds are often generated by insurance settlements.

Yet underneath, a cancer grows. This foundation for economic stability—insurance—is collapsing. Our Molecular Future reveals the depth of the situation.

To inoculate ourselves against nature’s occasional tantrums, and avoid collapse of the insurance industry, we may have to construct powerful molecular defenses. Yet, these defenses themselves may threaten our existence, due to their potential for abuse. Some say that the risks outweigh the potential gains.

So, if it’s such a risk, why go there?

Evidence suggests there may be no alternative. Our Molecular Future explains why.

By tracing disruptions of the past and advances of the present through to technologies of the future, it becomes more than a book: it's a whole new field of study; a multifaceted approach to our past, our present, and our potential futures.

Because of this, the book appeals to a wide range of readers.

Read it if you are...

...striving to understand the molecular world that we may soon live in

...wondering about your job prospects or health care in an age of disruptive technologies

...looking for ways to cope with climate extremes or natural disasters

The book also has special relevance if you’re one of these individuals:

A business or economics student: Here are ideas about what startups might flourish in a molecular economy. "Genetic computing" may make most manufacturing processes and patents obsolete.Moreover, new industries might emerge from our capacities to cope with natural hazards.

A lecturer or student in environment, natural science, and ethics. The book is a valuable supplement to course materials:

--For environment, it identifies challenges to the Precautionary Principle and the doctrine of sustainable development.

--For natural science, it summarizes new discoveries about naturally occurring climate changes and ecological disruptions that are changing our views about the stability of the natural world. --For scientific ethics, it gives an overview of the ethical questions associated with development of powerful new tools.

An executive positioning your company for the approaching molecular era. Here is information about startups that might flourish in a molecular economy.

An insurer or corporate manager who plans disaster recovery strategies. This summarizes natural risks and technologies that may alter the way that businesses prepare for them. A health care provider. Research into nanobacteria and robotic surgery may alter the way we treat disease. A scientist confronted by environmental opposition to your technologies: Here's one way out of the impasse between the life sciences and environmentalists. An environmentalist who forecasts how technology might alter the ecology: Molecular technologies and natural changes may upend the Precautionary Principle and the doctrine of sustainable development.

The book also has an extensive index and endnotes, with links to authoritative Web sites. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

More like a fancy futuristic trip than an informative tome
You can see this book was written by a journalist rather than a scientist.

Yes, it contains a big deal of information, but this is casually scattered all over the text with little resemblance of order. The feeling you get is that the author searched the internet for a few weeks looking for anything he could find about future technologies and than casually slapped the lot on paper interspersing it with his own rants. I'm not saying this is what he actually did, but surely it is what it feels like.

A lot of futuristic gizmos are described but how are they really supposed to work, how likely is that they are ever really realized and when, if ever, they will be available hardly is.
So the author describes how in the future nanobots will swim in our blood vessels cleaning it from all sort of impurities. That's all good and well but how will, in practice, this bots work? How will they be built? Where will they get the energy to function from? What kind of intelligence will they have to perform their task? What are the collateral risks of such technology? When can we expect them to be available? Which scientists and researchers think building such devices is possible and which think it is not, and especially why? This kind of information is hardly present and when it is appears shallow in content and scattered seemingly at random all over the book.

If I wanted fancy scenarios rather than hard facts I would have bought a science fiction novel. As a matter of fact a lot of the gizmos the author mentions I personally already encountered in science fiction, only better explained.

Fact is, if I just wanted scattered information I would have searched the internet myself at a much cheaper cost than the book's. Nowadays most of what you need to know is online, if you buy a book you are looking for a tidy summary and/or a deeper analysis. Did this part of the present technological revolution escape such a futurist author?

Prophets of Reality
Anyone familiar with Ray Kurzweil and/or the notion of the Singularity will not be surprised by this book.The difference between Mulhall and other technological prophets is the degree of detail.Actually, the book should have been expanded into two - the first covering background and possible trends, the second dealing with societal and individual reaction and responses to this coming future.

It is a truism but the wild blue yonder never seems wild or blue or so yonder.What we now casually accept as part of everyday life - the ability to communicate with anyone at anytime, the abundance of free knowledge, the vast capabilities of computers, machines without moving parts, the merging of radio, camera, computer and telephone into a single device - this would have seemed almost miraculous even 15 years ago.I have an idea that a future in which we can have whatever we want through nanotech is still a long way off.The problem is two fold:How will such power be controlled and who will do the controlling.

This is yet another opportunity for increasing the authority of the State when, on the face of it, these creations should lead to individual empowerment.The best parts were the technical discussions, what will or will not be possible, when and how all this will come about.The preachy parts were the worst and should have been in another book.When I see the word "should" as in "what we should do is" I feel a warning.Perhaps the most poignant warning was an event that is today occurring:The forgetting of culture and the past. It seems as if our new technology has made all things new without any reference to the past.Like the Hopi (his example), we may once remember this society by our leftovers.The discussion on democracy was good but not nearly extensive enough.If we are to maintain any notion of individual worth, privacy, "rights" and community, this problem must be dealt with even as we advance.My grade:B

Great Book about Nanotechnology.
I have just finished reading this book, and i must say wow!This is a amazing read from start to end.The book goes over what Nanotechnology is now, and what possiblities are there in the future.I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about Nanotechnology.

Get up to speed on nanotechnology and your future
If there is a better book that can get one up to speed on the ramifications of nanotechnology, then I'd like to know about it.

The media does a poor job on covering nanotechnology.Forget the media; read this book instead.

The author was on the Art Bell show recently.Three hours was not enough time to do this book and subject justice.

Art Bell fans will love this book.It covers many of the catastrophe scenarios that Art and George Noory talk about.

Art and George spend little time talking about nanotechnology.Again, read this book and you'll enjoy their next show on nanotechnology even more.

If you believe this book, then nanotechnology will change your life like nothing that has ever come before.

It's like reading a science fiction novel, only minus the fiction.

Lets use these technologies to save our future
If I had to sum up the main theme of this work, I would say it's about preservation of the human species.A large portion of this work is devoted to how humans (or our progeny) can avoid extinction by natural and man-made disaster.All other discussions seem to lead to this point in one form or another. The author believes that the underlying technologies in the title can and perhaps will provide for our salvation if we play our cards right.

The author has done his research and has a large source of information to draw from.This book gives the reader a good overview of real scientific advancements as well as other insights from prominent leaders and theorists in these fields.There are ample notes and anecdotes to give the reader the option to pursue more detailed information on the topics.

A few parts of the book drag due to some repetitiveness and some of the discussions don't appear to have a firm scientific base and don't seem too plausible, especially if you have decent scientific knowledge in the particular subject.If you are a scientist or engineer with some expertise in the fields you may find that some theories lack a firm foundation.However one theme that comes with the author's optimism is that throughout history, even the most prominent experts have been proven wrong through natural progressions and even breakthroughs!

This work is not incredibly deep or profound though quite entertaining and at times it appears to feel more like a novel than a documentary of the future.It is suitable for readers of all walks of life. ... Read more

Product Description
How could nanotechnology not perk the interest of any designer, engineer or architect? Exploring the intriguing new approaches to design that nanotechnologies offer, Nanomaterials, Nanotechnologies and Design is set against the sometimes fantastic sounding potential of this technology. Nanotechnology offers product engineers, designers, architects and consumers a vastly enhanced palette of materials and properties, ranging from the profound to the superficial. It is for engineering and design students and professionals who need to understand enough about the subject to apply it with real meaning to their own work.

* World-renowned author team address the hot-topic of nanotechnology
* The first book to address and explore the impacts and opportunities of nanotech for mainstream designers, engineers and architects
* Full colour production and excellent design: guaranteed to appeal to everyone concerned with good design and the use of new materials ... Read more

Product Description
Get up to speed on nanotechnology and the many biological, chemical, physical, environmental, and political aspects of this developing science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Shape of Things to Come
Nanotechnology promises to bring vast improvements in technology and standard of living in the next generation, and "Nanotechnology Demystified" is a good way for the general reader to get up to speed on this exciting new field.The author explains the basic scientific concepts behind nanotechnology, and then describes the expected advances that nanotechnology will make possible in areas such as health care, energy, computing, communications, electronics, and more.This is a book that will make the reader excited about the future.

Nanotechnology Demystified
Nanotechnology forms the basis of many evolving and upcoming technologies. This is an easy way to have a closer look at the technology without going through all the technical hassles. I was now able to broadly define nanotechnology and recommend it to all people with a curious outlook towards technology. A great buy for its content.

Very informative for a beginner!
It is exciting to learn about the nanoscale world and nanotechnology's influence on pharmaceuticals, biomedical applications, energy, communications, engineering and the environment. The most amazing stuff are 'nanomedicine' and 'quantum computing & communications'. For your information, nanomedicine describes the medical field of targeting disease or repairing damaged tissues at the molecular level. Quantum computers will be able to process and store huge amounts of information. Quantum processing can operate millions, even billions of times faster than today's supercomputers!

not bad technically, but style was annoying
I thought the book was not bad techniclly, albeit written at fairly low level, which I suppose it the focus of the book. However, the authors tried to be "cute" and "dumbed" down the writing, which I found annoying. For example, each chapter ended with a short quiz of 10-15 questions. Without fail, at least 1-2 questions had one absurd and stupid multiple choice answer. For example, Chapt 2, question 9 asks "a nanometer is equal to...?," and choice (a) is "zillionth of a meter." Pretty stupid-right? Chapter 3, question 4 asks "nanotechnology allows material to be created from...?," and choice (c) is "dust bunnies." Even more stupid. Chapt 4, question 6 asks "which of the following tools are not used by nanotechnologists in their work" and choice (d) is "a can opener." OK, now it's getting annoying. This continues through out the entire book, with each chapter having at least one such stupid choice. I don't know if the authors were trying to be funny, amusing, or inject some levity, but I think it had the effect of "dumbing-down the book." I found it rather annoying. It really wasn't the most scholarly work, but if you know absolutely nothing about nanotechnology, and wish to know at least the basic terminology, I suppose it's worth reading. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (11)

Excellent and efficient service
After finding a book I have been looking for for a while, I was extremely surprised when 8 days after the purchase, it showed up in my mail box. It was in excellent condition and was a joy to read. Thanks again for the super quick service and quality.

Neurite cells from DNA scaffolding
"Nanotechnologist have as their goal to design and build matter to order, specified by a functional requirement.Nanotechnology is coordinated movement, a choreographed dance among atoms and molecules to achieve a desired effect."

"Labs-on-chips and nanometer probes link the logical and the biological-the computational and the sensational, and the dry and the moist.They open avenues to apply our most powerful human-made engines of analysis to themost intricate, fascinating system ever engineered: the organism."

1. The near future for nanotechnology may see applications, such as, diabetic monitoring of blood sugar levels (bio-pharmacy), filtering cells for dangerous mutation (bio-chip), removing pollutants for the air and water, hardened nanotech polymer bullets, miniscule unmanned drones with aluminum oxide explosives, hydrogen powered muscle suits, digital paint that scan refreshes display scenes from across the world, wireless tracking - recording - and imaging devices the size of dust, DNA grown circuits and nanowires, DNA computing devices, protein inspired materials with increased tensile strength, blends of nano composites and organic scaffolding.
2. In 2005, $30 billion was invested in health research
3. Nanotechnology holds the promise of being able to detect cancer in the early stages when cell count ranges between 10-100 cells rather than 1 billion cell colonies. Shming Nie invented a light emitting beacon; the beacon has selective molecules that work like velco, sticking to the cancer cell; the 5 nanometer Quantum Dot emits a orange-red hue; the beacon is composed of a cancer recognizing polymer and protect against the toxicity of the cadmium selenide.DNA scaffolding extended the duration of light emissions by the beacons.
4. Millions of lab experiments and tests inside the person are done by biochips.
5. Bob Langer work focused on drug delivery in a consistent concentration release level.Drug decay prevention improved effectiveness by trapping the drug in wafers made of polymers, the sponge-like polymers controlled the escape speed of the drug.Langer improved delivery by taking the drug directly to the cell by using 100 nm, Liposomes filled with different drugs; the Liposomes were decoreated with molecules that bind to specific markers on the cancerous cells, the membrane fuses with the cell, and the drug is released into the cell. Liposomes have been used to treat, Kaposi Sarcoma.
6. Pharmacy on a chip is a programmed implant that can release drugs. The pharmacy chip is connected to a group of gold reservoirs containing 1 billionth of a liter of the drug and the thin gold containment membrane dissolves when under electric charge.
7. Russel Giodano discovered 3D structures like apartments for cells; George Whiteside discovered patterns on the apartment that allowed cells to live or die.Sam Stupp's work on neuron lead him to build a regenerative DNA scaffold, self-organized molecules forming a long rod with the ends covered with nerve tissue promoting proteins.Next, stems were injected into the scaffolding and the stem cells differentiated into neurite cells,instead of astrocytes, healthy cells that could integrate into future spinal injuries repairs or Alzheimer's patients.

Making Nano understandable
Not being a scientist, and not having an understanding of Nanotechnology this book opened up a new world for me. Ted Sargent has shed light on a very complex subject so well that even I can understand it! And that is saying something. The book went beyond just the science for me and made me think about how we can utilise the thinking and the science. People tend to over analyse a book like this. Go with it and enjoy a new world. Loved it Ted!

Top-notch!
The Dance of Molecules is a great book and extremely interesting.

Prof. Sargent's writing is very impressive, with wonderful prose and excellent examples.He has a great talent at telling an engaging and relevant story.

Technically, the insights are exceedingly broad AND deep, and yet are very accessible to the lay-person.

Too Many Metaphors
This book was a frustrating read. The topic is interesting even though technically challenging. In his attempt to make the subject accessible to the general public, the author used metaphors to an extreme throughout the book. As soon as he got close to revealing some interesting techical information about nanotechnology, he would appear to assume that his reader was too slow to grasp the real concepts and segue into a metaphor about stacked egg cartons or air traffic routes.

The metaphors do provide a simplistic visual similarity to the structures he is talking about, but I found them to be useless in trying to understand what is actually going on. There is just not much that stacks of egg cartons really have in common with a crystal lattice, and the metaphore breaks down almost immediately. It would have been better if he had included the detailed information and then offered the metaphors in case the reader didn't understand it. Instead, he left the details out, relying on only the metaphores to get his points across.

The book would also have benefitted from better illustrations. For example, when discussing the many ways that a sheet of carbon atoms can be wound into a cylinder, some drawings would have helped better than a metaphor about wrapping a label around a soft drink bottle and then trying to explain the fact that the atoms will align themselves in only a discrete number of positions, so the label can't really be put on the bottle just any old way. I was totally confused after reading that.

There is a great deal of enthusiastic hype for the future of the technology, and very little actual information about how it works. ... Read more

Product Description
Flying cars, space travel for everyone, the elimination of poverty and hunger, and powerful new tools to combat disease, and even aging. These are some of the amazing predicted developments of nanotechnology, the coming science of designing and building machines at the molecular and atomic levels. Will this new scientific revolution be for better or worse? Some commentators have described utopias; others have prophesied disaster. Find out the likely reality from an expert, Dr. J. Storrs Hall, in this absorbing insider’s guide to the near future.Dr. Hall—a leading researcher on the frontiers of nanotechnology who has designed for NASA—describes nanotechnology in a very accessible way, so that anyone can understand what it’s about, what it could do, and what it can’t do. He puts it into historical context, explaining how previous technological developments have affected us, how nanotechnology fits into the historical trends for technologies ranging from motors to medicine, and how the continuation of these trends, with nanotechnology as a strong determining factor, will have a profound impact on the future. In addition to describing his famous invention utility fog, Hall explains how nanotechnology will make possible many of the science fiction dreams of the past. But what hurdles, technological, political, or social, stand in the way? What dangers will this powerful new technology pose? How will it impact the environment? Can we afford to develop it? Can we afford not to? The true dangers are not what you may think, and are far different from the fears of today’s alarmists. In a straightforward, balanced manner, Dr. Hall analyzes the benefits as well as the potential risks.Together with its sister science of biotechnology, nanotechnology has the potential to alter the very human race, change who we are. Can this possibly be good? Should it be encouraged or opposed? No one knows for sure, but the basis for informed thought can be found in these exciting, stimulating pages, which will open the doors of the future to you. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

I don't recommend this book to anyone interested in Nanotechnology
There are two main reasons why I don't recommend this book to anyone. The first, and most annoying, reason is readability. This book was written horribly. Many times I found myself struggling to understand what the author wanted to say. This book requires a great deal of editing. I managed to go through some of it, but I just couldn't continue.

The second and very important reason is the structure of the book. The author digs into details without giving the big picture. Although the details are not that technical, but they lack perspective. I got lost in the details without understanding the reason behind them.

One other thing I didn't like, but wasn't a big factor in my decision to stop reading the book was some of some examples. Sometimes the examples didn't convey the idea well enough. They weren't thought out well enough.

No one is an expert on everything...
While nanotechnology (especially the version defined/described in this book) definitely has the potential to revolutionize many facets of our lives, it is hard to believe that Dr. Hall is an expert on all of the topics he covers in this book.For example, within the space of 288 pages, Dr. Hall manages to expound on everything from aerodynamics and aircraft design (p.162-163) to the basic ideology and driving forces of terrorism (p. 232-233).As a result, "Nanofuture" comes off more as the ramblings of an individual rather than a thoroughly researched and objective assessment of nanotechnology.

A Shallow Overview
One of the other reviewers suggested library, and I followed that advice.I am so glad I did!This isn't a book I'd want in my personal collection.The editing is terrible, and the book feels more like a history lesson regarding the real-world roots of nano-tech than what's actually coming in the nano-tech future.While published in 2005, this book was merely Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology slightly updated.Having read Drexler's first book, little has been added with this newer edition.

The given examples of 'today's' nanotech are ultrafine powders, experimental computer chips, the beam of an electron microscope, and DNA.It is clear we are nowhere near real nanotech, and the author pads out the book with scientific history (seen it before) and speculation (read better science fiction).

No mention is made of the potential health risks of nanetic debris left-over from damaged nano-machines or self-replication.The 'dangers' chapter focuses on the usual run-away machines, war weapons, and bio-illness attack nanites (author downplays this by stating biosciences will make more effective diseases than nano-science).Nothing about how your first generation nano-suit might poison you inadvertently.The brief paragraph on 'nano-particles' (p236) doesn't account for the potential unknown reaction between human immune systems and complex nano-particles/machines which somehow enter the human body through the skin.Rather, the author prefers to pipe-dream up nano-machines repairing our cells as an extended surgery tools.Again, nothing about allergic reactions or T-Cell responses.Nothing about what a low-level EMP pulse from sunspots or power line magnetic fields might do to an unshielded 'augmented' human (improvements chapter p257-269) or nano-machines in general.How might a person's own personal bio-electrical field and nerve impulses interfere with a functional nano-machine?Also nothing about nano-surveillance with picture and tracking capabilities.

Overall, I was disappointed because it felt like the book didn't address the questions I had.No equations, and too fanciful and idealized.I doubt we're making matter into software (p271) in the next few hundred years.I did find the Utility Fog (p188) and parts of the Artificial Intelligence Chapter interesting, so I can't say I didn't like the book.Still not really worth buying for about 15 pages of material.Your mileage may vary, but use the library copy.

Good introduction, but just the beginning
For those who are new to nanotechnology, this is a good place to start. But be prepared for a journey through a variety of disciplines that relate to this topic, including physics, engineering, biology, and others. The descriptions and analogies that explain what nanotechnology is, how it would work, and what it would be good for are useful and understandable. Those who are already reasonably familiar with these concepts might find the first half of the book tedious, and should probably look for something more advanced, perhaps addressing particular applications of nanotechnology.
The character of the narrative changes about two-thirds of the way into the book, as Hall shifts to discussions of possible nano-futures and why we should embrace them rather than fear them. At this point, technical explanation gives way to speculation and opinion. There's nothing wrong with that - it's always interesting to hear what experienced, forward-looking technologists have to say about their perspective on the future. From my perspective (political scientist specializing in science & tech policy, especially for space), I would have liked to see more about how evolving nanotech can be used to develop capabilities and solutions in the medium term and less about how we're going to become preternatural transhumans who all own Star Trek-style matter synthesizers.
The artificial intelligence chapter is an interesting intro to AI, but the tie-in to nanotech is almost non-existent, so it seems like a sidebar discussion. Regarding the chapter on space, I would have liked to see this topic far more developed given the author's obvious interest in it. The role of nanotech in space seems relegated to making better spacesuits and stronger, lighter spaceships - and of course, providing spacefarers with those handy synthesizers than can turn asteroid dust into food. There must be a multitude of other applications: sensor nets, very large-scale life support systems, space agriculture, energy generation and distribution, propulsion, etc. For those who are fond of the "space elevator" and similar concepts, Hall quickly dismisses these as infeasible and proposes his own idea for an immense launch tower (60 miles high, 240 miles long) that seems like it would be even more difficult to construct than the space elevator.
Some readers will prefer the technical exposition of the first part of the book; others, the futurist speculation of the second part. Either way, this is a topic we need to be thinking about, since the future is what we make it.

Best nanotech book since "Engines of Creation"
It has been two decades since Drexler's Engines of Creation launched the beginnings of the nanotech revolution, and it has aged better than any other technical book I've ever read. Since Engines of Creation has not yet been updated, J. Storrs Hall's book Nanofuture: What's Next for Nanotechnology is the book to read to quickly learn why increasing numbers of people are getting excited about nanotechnology.

Hall begins the book by addressing the current confusion regarding nanotechnology, explaining how the National Nanotechnology Initiative's budget is being spent on nanoscale science, with almost nothing going to what Hall defines as nanotechnology: atomically precise manufacturing of machines whose parts are built with atomic precision. This means that each atom and bond in the finished part is designed, just as the parts in the machinery are.

To deliver on the results that most people expect from nanotechnology, the current NNI research focus--on synthetic chemistry, nanoscale particles, materials science, and even nanoelectronics--is not enough. In clear and easy-to-read prose, Hall explains why, and he explains what needs to be done, and how we've progressed towards that goal.

As the former administrator of the sci.nanotech newsgroup, Hall observed or participated in many discussions on nanotech issues in the last two decades. These included everything from the technical problems of molecular self-assembly and self-replication to the methods for preventing catastrophic misuses of advanced molecular manufacturing. He uses this expertise to explain complex technical details, without ignoring the social and economic implications. The biggest difference between Engines of Creation and Nanofutures is that Hall discusses many advances made in the last 20 years, and addresses arguments that were leveled against Engines of Creation. He also puts many applications of nanotechnology in a detailed historical context, connecting them strongly not only with the present, but with the past.

While Hall is optimistic about nanotech developments, he often explains the caveats involved. He says things like "If we can do using the primitive molecularly imprecise structures, isn't it reasonable that we'll be able to do much better with atomically precise ones?" He then explains the limits that we may not be able to overcome. For example, molecular manufacturing may enable better superconductors in general, but may not enable nanoscale superconducting wires because there may not be enough room for the molecular processes involved in superconduction to operate.

One section of Nanofuture that might be over-optimistic is the section on AI, for the same reason that Engines of Creation was over-optimistic: the predictions are not concerned with new engineering (which generally is predictable) but with new science (in which new discoveries cannot be predicted). In this case, AI may even require new metaphysics.

Hall's projections miss the ways in which the nanotechnology revolution will extend the two biggest problems raised by the World Wide Web. The first is the physical instantiation of computer viruses. They will most likely only infect nanofactories, but the impact will be more substantial than if only software were affected. The second is the human vulnerability to compulsive addictions (eg. gambling, pornography, computer games).

In summary, unless you've been closely following nanotechnology for the past 20 years, Hall's Nanofuture is the best book for understanding the coming nanotech revolution.

... Read more

Product Description

WINNER 2009 CHOICE AWARD OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE! Nanotechnology is no longer a subdiscipline of chemistry, engineering, or any other field. It represents the convergence of many fields, and therefore demands a new paradigm for teaching. This textbook is for the next generation of nanotechnologists. It surveys the field’s broad landscape, exploring the physical basics such as nanorheology, nanofluidics, and nanomechanics as well as industrial concerns such as manufacturing, reliability, and safety. The authors then explore the vast range of nanomaterials and systematically outline devices and applications in various industrial sectors.

This color text is an ideal companion to Introduction to Nanoscience by the same group of esteemed authors. Both titles are also available as the single volume Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

A continually expanding wealth of instructional materials is available online with qualified course adoption. These include slides, lecture notes for every chapter, review questions, solutions, and more.

Customer Reviews (1)

Great book
It's a great book about Nanotechnology. The quality of paper is great like a magazine. There are a lot of colorful pictures and newest trends in this field in it. However, it's not a very good book for homework, because I can hardly figure out how to do it by looking up this book; and the price is a little bit high for a student. ... Read more

Product Description
Nanotechnology, the science of molecular engineering at the atomic scale, has captured the popular imagination. From movies to TV series to video games, utopian fantasies and horror scenarios involving nanotechnology have become a staple of the entertainment industry. The hyperbole surrounding this new technology comes not only from the media but also from scientists who exaggerate the anticipated benefits of nanotechnology to justify research funding, as well as from environmentalists and globalization opponents, who sometimes indulge in doom-and-gloom prophecies to advance their own agendas. The result is widespread misinformation and an uninformed public.

In an effort to set the record straight, professor of communication studies David M. Berube has written this thoroughly researched, accessible overview of nanotechnology in contemporary culture. He evaluates the claims and counterclaims about nanotechnology by a broad range of interested parties including government officials and bureaucrats, industry leaders and entrepreneurs, scientists, journalists, and other persons in the media. Berube appraises programs and grand initiatives here and abroad, and he examines the environmental concerns raised by opponents, as well as the government and private responses to these concerns. With so much argumentation on both sides, it is difficult for anyone to determine what is true. Nano-Hype provides up-to-date, objective information to inform the public.

Based on over a decade of research and interviews with many of the movers and shakers in nanotechnology, this critical study will help the reader separate the realistic prospects from the hype surrounding this important cutting-edge technology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Nanotechnology Materials , Electronics , Healthcare , Energy
Materials:

1. The National Science Foundation predicts annual sales of $340 billion for nanostructured materials, $600 billion for electronics and information-related equipment, and around $180 billion in annual sales from nanopharmaceutircals by 2015.

2. The biggest markets for nanoparticles remain in familiar products, from the black rubber filer in tires, a $4 billion industry, to the silver used in traditional photography." According to Lux Research, "only about $13 billion worth of manufactured goods will incorporate nanotechnology in 2005." "Toward the end of the decade, Lux predicts, nanotechnology will have worked their way into a universe of products worth $292 billion".

3. Three California companies are developing nanomaterial for improving catalytic converters: Catalytic Solutions, Nanostellar, and QuantumSphere.

4. Kopin light-emitting diodes called CyberLite uses less voltage than current LED technology with High ESD resistance of 4000 volts. "High ESD resistance is critical for industrial applications such as in automobiles. These blue and white CyberLites are ideal for compact portable light-using devices, such as wireless phones, games, camcorders, cameras, laptops and PDAs, which operate on battery power."

5. QuantumSphere, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of high-quality nano catalysts for applications in portable power, renewable energy, electronics, and defense. These nanopowders can be used in batteries, fuel cells, air-breathing systems, and hydrogen production cells. A leading producter of NanoNickel and NanoSilver.

6. Cyclics Corp adds nanoscale clays to it's registered resin for higher termal stability, stiffiness, dimensional stability, and barrier to solvent and gas pentration. "Cyclics resins expand the use of thermoplastics to make plastics parts that cannot be made using thermoplastics today, and make them better, less expensively and recyclable."

7. Naturalnano is a nanomaterials company developing applications include industrial polymers, plastics and composites; and additives to cosmetics, agricultural, and household products

8. Industrial Nanotech has developed nansulate, a spray on coating with remarkable insulating qualities claiming the highest quality insulation on the planet with temperature ranges from -40 to 400 C. The coating can be applied to: Pipes-Tanks-Ducts-Boilers-Refineries-Ships-Trucks-Containers-Commercial-Industrial-Residential

9. Production will shift from the United States and Japan to Korea and China by 2010, and the major supplier of the nanotubes will be Korea.

10. GE Advanced Materials and DOW automotive have both developed nanocomposite technologies for online painted vertical body panels. Mercedes is using a clear-cost finish that includes nanoparticle engineered to cluster together where form a shell resistant to abrasion.

11. eMembrane is developing a nanoscale polymer brushes coats with molecules to capture and remove poisonous metal proteins, and germs."

12. KX Industries - Design and manufacture of extruded activated carbon water filtration media with in-house developed proprietary technology: antibacterial and antiviral water -filtering membranes that can turn raw sewage into clean water.

13. Nanosonic is creating Metal rubber that exhibit electrical conductivity.

14. ApNano is a producer of nanotubes and nanosphere made from inorganic compounds. ApNano product, Nanolub is a solid lubricant that enhances the performance of moving parts, reduces fuel consumption, and replaces other additives.

Electronics:

1. A study by FTM consulting reported future chips that use nanotechnology are forecasted to grow in sales from $12.3 billion in 2009 to $172 billion by 2014.

2. Harvard researcher "applied nanowires to glass substrates in solution and then used standard photolithography techniques to create circuits." Nanomarkets predicts "the market for nano-enabled electronics will reach $10.8 billion in 2007 and $82.5 billion in 2011."

3. IBM researchers created a circuit capable of performing simple logic calculations via self-assembled carbon nanotubes (Millipede) and Millipede will be able to store forty times more information as current hard drives. MRAM will be inexpensive enough to replace SRAM and nanomarket predicts MRAM will rise to $3.8 billion by 2008 and 12.9 billion by 2011.

4. Cavendish Kinetics store data using thousands of electro-mechanical switches that are toggeled up or down to represent either a one or a zero as a binary bit. Their devices use 100 times less power and work up to a 1000 times faster.

5. Currently, the most common nanostorage devices are based on ferroelectric random access memory, FRAM. Data are store using electric fields inside a capacitor. Typically FRAM memory chips are found in electronics devices for storing small amounts of non-volatile data.

6. A team from Case Western has approached production issues by growing carbon nanotube bridges in its lab that automatically attach themselves to other components with the help of an applied electrical current. "You can grow building blocks of ultra large scale integrated circuits by growing self-assembled and self-welded carbon nanotubes."

7. Applied Nanotech using an electron-beam lithograph carved switches from wafers made of single-crystal layers of silicon and silicon oxide.

A Wealth of Information
This is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive reviews of nanotechnology available today.Dr. Berube is probably one of the most informed professors regarding nanotechnology in the world today, and it is certainly apparent in his book.I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the field, from beginners just starting to understand the technology to those wishing to refine their existing knowledge base. ... Read more

Product Description
Introduction to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology explains nanotechnology to an audience that does not necessarily have a scientific background. It covers all aspects, including the new areas of biomedical applications and the use of nanotechnology to probe the "quantum vacuum." After discussing the present state of the art in nanotechnology, the book makes estimates of where these technologies are going and what will be possible in the future. ... Read more

Product Description

A first step in developing a clean and sustainable future is to think differently about everyday products, in particular how they influence energy use. Green Nanotechnology: Solutions for Sustainability and Energy in the Built Environment explores the science and technology of tiny structures that have a huge potential to improve quality of life while simultaneously achieving reductions in the use of fossil fuels. This book examines energy flows in nature and how the optical properties of materials can be designed to harmonize with those flows. It then discusses the properties that can be achieved in real materials to take advantage of nature’s energy flows.

The authors cohesively examine a number of topics, highlighting their applications and the significance of their nano features. They provide a cursory discussion of well-reviewed subjects such as nanostructured solar cells and turn their attention to timely topics such as methods for preventing excessive temperature and approaches to passive cooling. The book identifies key materials and elucidates how their properties can be understood in terms of contemporary materials physics and chemistry. It concludes with a detailed description of a scenario for future buildings that use much less energy while also providing better comfort.

A valuable side effect of most nanotechnologies is that they inherently put us in closer touch with the natural world. With broad coverage of how nanoparticles impact energy use in the built environment, this book opens readers’ eyes to a fascinating vision of how technology and nanoscience can merge and lead to commodity-scale products that help preserve our planet.

Product Description
A book which provides a guide to nanotechnology, the science which will enable the creation of machines so small as to be measured in billions of a metre. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Fascinating subject, but tedious reading and overoptimistic
This book is about molecular nanotechnology for the layperson. According to the glossary of the book, molecular nanotechnology is "thorough, inexpensive control of the structure of matter based on molecule-by-molecule control of products and byproducts; the products and processes of molecular manufacturing, including molecular machinery." Basically, what if you could build something by assembling it one molecule at a time?The book covers the technology itself, paths leading to the development of the technology, and the positive and negative social and economic consequences of the technology. This is a fascinating subject, but I found the book tedious to read. I think this is due in large part to the numerous "scenarios" that the authors present. There are two main problems with the scenarios. First, the book dwells too much on the fact that they are scenarios. Second, the scenarios are too explanatory to be good stories, and too tedious to be good explanations. Perhaps science fiction would have been a more effective format. Additionally, I believe this book paints an overoptimistic picture, for two reasons. First, I feel that the scientific and engineering difficulties in developing nanotechnology have been glossed over. For example, it is one thing to note that plants can transform sunlight into stored energy; it is another to suggest, with no justification or explanation, that we can engineer an equivalent system. Second, despite the authors' claim that this is not an optimistic book, I think the difficulties in preventing accidents and abuse have been underestimated. For those of you familiar with SETI and the Drake Equation, perhaps the true measure of L, the lifetime of communicating civilizations, is not the ability to survive nuclear weapons (which seems to be the commonly assumed limiting factor) but the ability to survive nanotechnology. Despite my criticisms, this book has many fascinating ideas and I recommend it...

Important look at a critical future technology
I'd give the authors five stars on this except, as with Drexler's "Engines of Creation," it's a bit dry and analytical for my taste.I'd very much like to see an update with more on the currentprospects for nanotechnology development, along with more"scenarios"--the authors' efforts to depict some of the ways inwhich it is likely to change society and the world.Those interested inthis topic should be sure not to miss two SF books by Nancy Kress,"Beggars in Spain" and "Beggars and Choosers," whichexplore potential impacts on society of genetic modification and nanotech. Interested readers should also contact Drexler's Foresight Institute (it'son the Web), which is working to encourage public policy debate on thesetopics.

A must read for anyone who is...
Depressed about the future of mankind!Drexler clearly explains afundamentally different way of looking at using technology: nanotechnology.The notion behind nanotech is simple: by exerting control overindividual atoms, we can custom-build molecules with incredible properties. Furthermore, we can create automated molecular factories with thepotential to build other molecules, and eventually macro-scale items thatwe need. The possibilities are nearly limitless for example, molecular"nanosurgeons" that can easily track down viruses, bacteria, orcancer cells.Or we can give ordinary items extraodinary properties:self-spreading paints, roofing material with low-voltage solar cells builtin, modular building tiles with plumbing and wiring that self-connects...It's all there in Drexler's readable book.Please read Unbounding TheFuture for a dose of technological optimism!!!

informative conjectures on the upper limits technologies
It's been a few years since I read it, so let's see how much I remember:

The author is probably the world's foremost authority on the subject of the book, therefore you are assured that the explanations presented do not come from a charlatan.

The book is about nanotechnology,the manipulation of atoms individually.Nanotechnolgy would create machines that are the ultimate in miniaturization or form materials with properties far superior to that of present day.The field is in its infancy, assuming it will mature.The conjectures are informativeyet sometimes fanciful (at least to THIS reader).

Anyone interested in future applications of current research may want a copy.

Gee, I hope I can refine this review later. See also Visions by Michio Kaku ... Read more

Product Description
Explore the potential for nanotechnologies to transform future mobile and Internet communications. Based on a research collaboration between Nokia, Helsinki University of Technology, and the University of Cambridge, here leading researchers review the current state-of-the art and future prospects for: • Novel multifunctional materials, dirt repellent, self-healing surface materials, and lightweight structural materials capable of adapting their shape • Portable energy storage using supercapacitor-battery hybrids based on new materials including carbon nanohorns and porous electrodes, fuel cell technologies, energy harvesting and more efficient solar cells • Electronics and computing advances reaching beyond IC scaling limits, new computing approaches and architectures, embedded intelligence and future memory technologies.• Nanoscale transducers for mechanical, optical and chemical sensing, sensor signal processing, and nanoscale actuation • Nanoelectronics to create ultrafast and adaptive electronics for future radio technologies • Flat panel displays with greater robustness, improved resolution, brightness and contrast, and mechanical flexibility • Manufacturing and innovation processes, plus commercialization of nanotechnologies. ... Read more

Product Description

Current concerns regarding greenhouse gas-related environmental effects, energy security, and the rising costs of fossil fuel-based energy has renewed interest in solar energy in general and photovotaics in particular. Exploring state-of-the-art developments from a practical point of view, Nanotechnology for Photovoltaics examines issues in increasing efficiency, decreasing costs, and how these two goals can be achieved in a single photovoltaic device. It provides fundamental background and places research approaches within the proper physical context as related to photovoltaics performance enhancement.

The book reviews the applications of devices and their performance requirements, followed by coverage of thin films and advanced band structure concepts for obtaining efficiencies above the Shockley–Queisser single bandgap efficiency limit of ~31%. The editor and contributors also discuss the basic optical properties of nanostructured materials as related to photovoltaics applications and describes nanoscale optoelectronic device physics related to performance. They then explore recent literature in the application of various classes of nanostructures to photovoltaics. The book covers solar cells based on hybrid organic-inorganic nanocomposites structures, quantum wells, nanowires/tubes, and quantum dots. It also discusses the use of nanoparticles/quantum dots to enhance the performance of conventional solar cells and luminescent solar concentrators.

Each chapter summarizes the historical development for the nanostructure class under consideration, applications beyond photovoltaics, and the major synthetic methods, followed by a critique of leading works that have employed the particular nanostructure type. The book examines the advantages of each nanostructure approach and the remaining technical challenges, with an emphasis on possible future areas of research interest. It concludes with a summary of the major processing approaches and challenges of using the various nanostructures to photovoltaics applications, focusing on future scale-up and nanomanufactuting issues. Many books cover photovoltaics and many others nanotechnology — it is the coverage of both in one resource that sets this book apart.

Customer Reviews (1)

highly recommended
"I have recommended the text to others and consider it to be a very nice snapshot of a wide range of activity in the photovoltaics arena." -Prof. David Tanenbaum, Pomona College ... Read more

Product Description
How nanotechnology will transform the war against terror.Nanotechnology offers immense potential for fighting terrorism without sacrificing our open, free, and democratic society. This book covers the significant opportunity to use nanotechnology to prevent terrorism and other threats to security as well as mitigate their impact. Co-authored by one of the field's pioneers and featuring remarks from other nanoscience researchers and industry leaders, Nanotechnology and Homeland Security is written for every educated citizen who wants to understand the weapons of choice in the battle of our generation.Coverage includes:*Nanotechnology-based sensors: fast, cheap, accurate tests for explosives, radiation, weapons of mass destruction, and food/water contamination *Nanotechnology-based smart materials: protecting homes, offices, and first responders *Nanotechnology-based biomedical research: revolutionary treatments for chemical/biological attacks and trauma *Nanotechnology-based energy generation technologies: ending the world's dependence on oil *Nanotechnology-based remediation technologies: healing the effects of environmental damage and ecoterrorism Daniel and Mark Ratner tell you what's real today-and what it'll take to transform tomorrow's applications from science fiction to reality.Along the way, they debunk the myths of nanotechnology, and offer new insight into its profound ethical, political, and social implications.Nanotechnology is an enabling technology that could have an impact on the world that dwarfs the Internet's impact on our daily lives.Mark and Dan Ratner have ably illustrated some of roles that nanotechnology can play in our future, including how it could enhance national security, make soldiers more effective on the battlefield, or even help prevent attacks on our homeland. As a member of Congress who is active in advancing the development of nanotechnology, I encourage other policymakers, educators, and social visionaries to become cognizant of tomorrow's possibilities.-U.S. Representative Mike Honda, Member, House of Representatives Committeeon Science.The authors do an excellent job of using their expert knowledge to clearly communicate complex topics into a clear, well-organized examination of the impact of nanotechnology on national security.-Lynn E. Foster, Jr., Nanotechnology Analyst, Squire Sanders & Dempsey, and author of the seminal Nanotechnology Yellow Pages study.U.S. policy-makers and -shapers: READ THIS BOOK!Then get to work.-Rocky Rawstern, Editor, Nanotech-Now.com.Nanotechnology and Homeland Security provides the reader with the most important weapon of all-knowledge.It is as much a blow against ignorance and hype as it is a primer for how real nanotechnology should contribute to our future security. Mark and Dan Ratner confront the utopians and the alarmists by debunking both 'molecular assemblers' and 'gray goo.' This book is informative, thought-provoking and very readable.-R. Stanley Williams, HP Senior Fellow, Hewlett-Packard Labs.The book is a clear overview of the two subjects of nanotechnology and countering terrorism, but its special strength is the thoughtful way it weaves these two subjects together."-R. Stephen Berry, Department of Chemistry and the James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.This book does an excellent job introducing the field of nanotechnology to the layperson by showing its promise for security and defense-perhaps the most relevant sectors of society demanding advances that only nanotechnology can provide.-Josh Wolfe, Managing Partner, Lux Capital, and Editor, Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech ReportThis book identifies many of the issues that need to be examined, and to be dealt with, if nanotechnology is to become a fully mature, fully productive asset to our nation and to the world.-James Murday, Chief Scientist, Office of Naval Research.This is the first example of an accessible book discussing the highly relevant field of nanotechnology and its applicability to homeland security in laymen's terms. The Ratners successfully cut through the hype surrounding the topic, while stimulating thoughts on many possibilities of the technology, especially in the defense and medical arenas. Mark Ratner is an internationally recognized expert in the field of nanotechnology with an in-depth knowledge in the area. He is respected by those in the academic and industrial research communities as a creative thinker with a long-standing track record of pioneering technical concepts for development of new materials.-Dr. Susan Ermer, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, Palo Alto, California ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

solid coverage of the science and engineering
The Ratners explain nanotechnology in a way readily accessible to a general audience. The book tries to suggest what might be realistically achievable in a few years. There are some preliminary results described. Like an improved stain resistant trousers. But these are really early years. It is true that if you focus on the progress made in the book, then there might be some disappointment.

However, the authors make a plausible case that future progress can yield much more. Naturally, the book stresses how new weapons might come into being, based on nanotech. Some of this you might regard as wildly speculative, while other possibilities might seem well within the reach of a few more years of effort.

A useful topic raised is Moore's so-called Second Law. That the cost of a semiconductor fab doubles with each new generation of fabs. This spells the end of Moore's First Law within a decade. Hence, the book positions a nanotech approach as a technological discontinuity as a necessary shift in order for computer hardware to keep improving beyond then.

The science and engineering aspects of nanotech are solidly covered by the book. It deserves to be widely read; especially by policymakers.

Hot Author Review:
Dan Ratner:A man with brains and one hot body!He's got it all!I have had the pleasure of meeting this young and "yummy" hunk after the release of his book.I must say, his photo in the book doesn't do him justice.Ladies, you really have to see this hunk in person!If you are ever in the Chicago area, I would seriously advise you to go.

You can tell he works out by his incredible bulging muscles.Oh, yeah!What a physique! Is this guy for real or just a fantasy?Gotta wipe that drool off your lips, Ladies. *smack*Oh, I'd love to feel those arms for myself.His body, from what I could see, gets an "A" rating here!!

His personality rating is an "A" rating as well.He is so well mannered and is a pleasure to converse with.Quite refreshing to meet such a man.I would certainly love a date with this fine young author over a nice old fashion candle-lit dinner.His mannerism is a definite "A+" rating here!

Unfortunately, my meeting with Mr. Dan Ratner was not long enough to give an extensive review, although, I hope our next meet will be.

Anyway, if you like brains and brawn, I'd definitely recommend this author!

Bound for the Discount Rack
I'm glad I got this as a gift as I certaily wouldn't have paid for it.If you want to read it take my advice and wait a year.It's bound to end up in the dollar bin, and you're bound to find dozens of used copies showing up on amazon.

Save your money
Save your money.The book is light on science and specifics and seems to spend a lot of time on things that do not seem to be related to either nanotechnology or homeland security.For example, they talk about and have a picture of nanotechnology-enhanced stain resistant pants from Eddie Bauer.If your looking for the latest on nanotech, better to read Smalltimes.

Save your money
Save your money. The book is light on science and specifics, and heavy on hyping things that seem unrelated to either nanotechnology or homeland security.For example, they have a picture of nanotechnology-enhanced stain resistant pants from Eddie Bauer.For better information on the latest developments, I would recommend Smalltimes. ... Read more