Time to Start Using New Examples for Nanotechnology Applications
By using the same examples for the last 10 years for nanotechnology may hint at its lack of commercial development
At some point in most discussions of nanotechnology and its impact, we get definitions (with or without Greek etymology), it’s current and projected market value and a list of its applications whether they be its current ones or possible ones in the future.
Getting something other than this is sort of like asking someone to describe a spiral staircase without using their hands, it can be done but they have to concentrate for a moment. The same goes for nanotechnology. You can either stop for a moment and consider some new way of describing nanotechnology’s impact or you can do what’s usually done and give the same answers people have been offering for the last 10 years.
I guess what annoys me the most is my own frequent use of this example. I am not angry with myself so much for my lack of imagination, although that’s a factor, but that we are turning to the same commercial applications for examples that we were using 8 years ago.
I was beginning to feel renewed when I saw Russell Cowburn, Professor nanotechnology at Imperial College London (another lab I had the good fortune to tour), liken nanotechnology to Henry Ford’s production line. Cowburn goes on to describe how many people who first saw Ford’s production line mistakenly believed that it was only applicable to automobile manufacturing. He argues that people are making the same mistake today about nanotechnology. It is not restricted to a few specific areas of manufacturing but will one day be ubiquitous. Nicely done.
But I have to remember my own advice and remember also that patience is a virtue.
Dexter Johnson is a contributing editor at IEEE Spectrum, with a focus on nanotechnology.