Key concepts:
After finishing this section you should be able to answer this question in terms of science engineering, and technology. Think about the 'nanoscale dimension' - and the world of the atom. How are forces different at that dimension? What 'systems', like chemistry and biology, do and don't exist at that level. What does angstrom scale precision in control of atomic placement give us?
What fields are impacted by nanotechnology? What are the large scale problems that we are trying to solve with nanotechnology? Think about energy, clean water, abundant food, medicine and health. How can nanotechnology impact these areas?
Try some of these links for nanotechnology related definitions. Webopedia has several terms, and Nanotechnology Now has a glossary all around the letter 'N'. About.com has a page with dozens of good links, as does Links999. Try scanning these as a start, and also see our links page. Also try the Nanoword encyclopedia and of course the wonderful Wikipedia.
Nanotechnology is a term first coined by Richard Feynman in his 1959 talk 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom'. Please read this paper for an understanding of his original thoughts regarding how technology could advance if we had control or access to the atomic scale dimension. A good review of nanotechnology can also be found in the September 2001 Scientific American issue. In 1986, Eric Drexler published the seminal work 'Engines of Creation', which describes the coming world of nanotechnology, assemblers, and a decent introduction to hypertext as well. For our first week, you'll review the free course put together by Glenn Fishbine, which can be accessed by http://www.glennfishbine.com/course.htm or downloading the files from our website http://www.informaticus.org/nano/course/ . Right click to download, the file sizes are clearly marked. Do not redistribute.
Thus website is a companion to the ETUDES site, as we need to have a place to store and distribute the many multimedia and PowerPoint files to accompany the physical lecture, as well as provide material for the online course. Everything on this site is posted with written permission from the original / contributing authors. You may use this material locally, but do not post on the Web - otherwise future classes may lose the opportunity to use these excellent resources which were shared with us.
The goal of this course is simply to help you understand the nanoscale dimension, and why it is important in science, engineering, and technology. You may be a chemist, physicist, biologist, engineer, or not any of these. But you share an interest in science and technology, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this page. The faculty delivering this course are scientist and engineers, and very experienced in nanotechnology. We share your passion for exploring the nanoscale dimension.
At the end of this course you will:
- Have an appreciation for just how complicated the universe is
- Have an awareness of the nanoscale dimension, and the world of the atom
- Understand the key technology challenges and benefits from nanotechnology
- Apply nanotechnology concepts and approaches to large scale problems:
- Energy
- Water
- Food
- Medicine
- Information technology
- Be aware of new science and technology, and where to follow those advances
- Last, and not least, you will have learned 100 new acronyms, and actually know what they mean!
Assignments for this week
- Log into ETUDES using this link
- Make sure you can login
- Visit the forums, read some of the posts
- Make sure that you can read the assignments and midterm
- Look at the weekly writing assignments
- Read Richard Feynman's 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom'
- If you have a high speed line, download and work through the the nanotechnology course by Glenn Fishbine
- Work though Parts 1-2, download the audio files if possible. Read the file sizes carefully.
- Look through the course website, week by week. This is our road map.
- Open a notebook (consider using Excel) and keep track of new vocabulary.
- Look through Foresight Institute's six grand challenges - http://www.foresight.org/challenges/index.html
- Take a quick look at the Powers of Ten website
- Look through the nanotechnology links page. Visit a few as time permits.
- Download the Course Overview - PPT
Learning outcomes for this week:
- What is nanotechnology?
- What is the scale of nanotechnology?
- What industries utilize nanotechnology?
- What products use nanotechnology (that you use today)?
- What are some of the science, engineering, and technology careers that require 'nanoscale competency'?
Copyright © 2006 - 2007 Robert D. Cormia - January 7, 2007