The Lycurgus Cup appears to change In the 1600s sword maker Assad Ullah produced exceptionally flexible strong and color depending on how it is lit sharp weapons known as Damascus sabers Ullah s exact technique is unknown but modern science has proved it featured carbon nanotubes and other nanostructures incorporated into the steel The nanostructures are what gave Damascus sabers their incredible powers Atomically speaking In 1959 IBM was producing state of the art computers that took up the space of a small room So it was rather surprising when physicist Richard P Feynman decided to think small In December of that year Feynman gave a speech to the American Physical Society titled Plenty of Room at the Bottom In the speech Feynman challenged scientists to think about manipulating and controlling things on a small scale Feynman was not thinking miniature he was thinking on the scale of atoms and nanometers Feynman spoke of storing all 24 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica approximately 24 000 pages on the head of a pin He predicted a future in which computers with millions of transistors could perform complex functions such as recognizing people's faces He mused What would the properties of materials be if we could really arrange the atoms the way we want them Although he did not use the term nanotechnology the advances Feynman dreamed of all fall under the field as it is now known It took decades for Feynman's ideas to catch on In the meantime the scientific world focused on conquering space Computers were integral to the space program and were used increasingly in business Both areas demanded smaller faster and more complex computers spurring the march toward the
i Integrated circuits or microchips have been getting smaller over time It was not until the 1980s that nanotechnology really started to spread The invention of several microscopes in that decade finally allowed scientists to view nanoscale items Nano Now According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies there are more than 1 600 consumer products containing nanomaterials Nanoparticles are used as additives in a wide variety of products including motor oil and deodorant Electronics such as cell phones and P Riley computers contain millions or even billions of nanoscale components in the form of transistors Nanoscale treatments keep surfaces scratch or dirt free Odor free and waterproof fabrics often get their properties from nanotechnology And nanotechnology is improving the quality and efficiency of many television and electronic displays 10
Richard Feynman 1918 1988 Remote norm and to share the ordinations by s scientist By age 15 he had taught himself trigonometry algebra analytic geometry and calculus Feynman earned a bachelor s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT in 1939 and a PhD from Princeton University in 1942 During World War II 1939 1945 he worked on the Manhattan Project which led to the development of the atomic bomb After the war Feynman became a professor of theoretical physics He received the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with quantum electrodynamics QED and the creation of Feynman diagrams QED addresses the electromagnetic forces between charged particles such as electrons and positrons Feynman diagrams are a graphical representation of these interactions In 1986 Feynman helped determine why the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded He concluded the report with one of his famous sayings For a successful technology reality must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled W11 11
