Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 079237178X ISBN 13: 9780792371786

Publisher: Springer, 2001

Synopsis

A revolution is occurring in science and technology, based on the recently developed ability to measure, manipulate and organize matter on the nanoscale - 1 to 100 billionths of a meter. At the nanoscale, physics, chemistry, biology, materials science, and engineering converge toward the same principles and tools. As a result, progress in nanoscience will have very far-reaching impact. The nanoscale is not just another step toward miniaturization, but a qualitatively new scale. The new behavior is dominated by quantum mechanics, material confinement in small structures, large interfacial volume fraction, and other unique properties, phenomena and processes. Many current theories of matter at the microscale have critical lengths of nanometer dimensions. These theories will be inadequate to describe the new phenomena at the nanoscale. As knowledge in nanoscience increases worldwide, there will likely be fundamental scientific advances. In tum, this will lead to dramatic changes in the ways materials, devices, and systems are understood and created. Innovative nanoscale properties and functions will be achieved through the control of matter at its building blocks: atom-by-atom, molecule-by­ molecule, and nanostructure-by-nanostructure. Nanotechnology will include the integration of these nanoscale structures into larger material components, systems, and architectures. However, within these larger scale systems the control and construction will remain at the nanoscale.

About this title

Synopsis

Advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology promise to have major impacts on human health, wealth, and peace in the coming decades. Among the expected breakthroughs are orders of magnitude increases in computer efficiency, human organ restoration using engineered tissue, 'designer' materials created from directed assembly of atoms and molecules, and the emergence of entirely new phenomena in chemistry and physics. This book includes a collection of essays by leading scientists, engineers, and social scientists reviewing the possible uses of these impending technical developments in various industrial, medical, and national security applications, and the corresponding ethical, legal, social, economic, and educational issues that they raise. The report outlines potential areas for research into societal implications of nanotechnology, as well as some preliminary suggestions for how potential positive impacts of nanotechnology can be maximized, while minimizing any possible negative impacts, real or imagined. This book also provides the beginning of a blueprint for how one should address second-order consequences of the new technology, either positive implications or potential risks.

This material was prepared under the auspices of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The issues raised in the book are global in scope, going far beyond the immediate impact of the NNI. They ask the general questions of how history and the human condition are affected by technological progress, and how individuals and institutions can seek to guide that progress in ways most beneficial to mankind in the long run.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 079237178X
• ISBN 13: 9780792371786
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 378
• Editor: Bainbridge William S.