Nanotechnology's long-term prospects

In the wake of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a lot of money has appeared for anything with the prefix "nano-" stuck on it. So now we are being told that a pair of pants is a product of advanced nanotechnology. We are told to expect modest improvements in the performance of items like toothpaste and laundry detergent.

That's not really very interesting or ground-shaking. These are instances where we are building teeny things with existing machines. The exciting nanotechnology is when you build things with teeny machines. So far, we don't have teeny machines. Nature does, and some researchers are investigating that route. Nature's machines have evolved to do very specific jobs and making them do other jobs takes a lot of ingenuity, when it's possible at all.

The currently popular definition for nanotechnology is objects with feature sizes of about a nanometer. But with that definition we don't get medical nanobots....



or space elevators....



or nanocomputers....



...or possible solutions to a host of other social ills.