A Treasure Trove of Nanotechnology-Related Videos

A video of a presentation from George Whitesides provides some great insights into nanotechnology's development

1 min read

Almost from the time YouTube launched there have been at least a scattering of videos related to nanotechnology to be found on it. Some have been good and some less so, but certainly the number of videos has expanded over the years.

With this increase, there have been those who have uploaded and collected nano-based videos and I recently came across a fairly new aggregator of these nanotechnology-related videos on YouTube called the NISE (Nanoscale Informal Science Education) Network, or at least new to me

I haven’t really looked at a wide variety of videos that NISE has collected, but the ones that come from a DVD NISE Network produced called “Talking Nano” contains some real gems. In particular, I enjoyed a seminar George Whitesides gave educators and journalists back in 2007 at the Museum of Science in Boston on what they should know and consider important when relating the subject of nanotechnology either to their students or their audience.

Whitesides, of course, is a renowned scientist at Harvard University, and someone who I’ve come to appreciate for his unique perspectives on how nanotechnology will develop.

I really recommend watching all four parts of the video below, but this one alone, the first in the series, has so many pearls of wisdom at least watch this one. For instance, he believes that nanotechnology will have its biggest impact in an area he terms “commodity infrastructure”, which to Whitesides includes things like energy, water and environmental maintenance. 

Okay, this is a presentation for lay people with long explanations about the scale of nanotechnology, but even the engineers and scientists who read Spectrum will enjoy it. 

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