Nanotechnology: Science, Innovation, and Opportunity

Part . Epilogue

In late 1959 and again in 1983 Nobel Laureate and Caltech physics professor Richard Feynman delivered talks entitled, respectively, There’s Plenty of Room at the Botto and Infinitesimal Machines.^[1],^[2] Both offered questions and suggestions for research on what we now call “nanotechnology.” By any name the subject matter was provocative and ahead of its time, so for many years these gems were not seen in the context of “real science” so much as novelties reflecting the rich, revered, idiosyncratic imagination for which Feynman was renowned—and still is, almost two decades after his death. Even in 1983 Feynman himself said “There is no use for these machines, so I still don’t understand why I’m fascinated by the question of making ...