Some of today’s biggest tech breakthroughs are small, so small that a tiny dust mite is enormous by comparison.
Nanotechnology is used to build structures that are smaller than 100 nanometers, one nanometer being one-millionth of a millimeter. It sounds futuristic, like something from our grandchildren’s generation that’s too far off to seriously consider. But nanotechnology is here today.
To really understand just how small these structures are, consider that nanowires have been built that are one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair. Some of the larger devices are one-tenth the diameter of a human hair – still unimaginably small.
While these inventions elicit visions of the future, they are products of the fertile imaginations of the past. Nanotechnology pioneer and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynmann envisioned as far back as 1959 writing the “entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin.”
Nanotechnology’s applications range from electronics, where smaller is often better, to aerospace, where strength and lightness are important, to medicine, where nanoscale surgical devices have the ability to make changes at the molecular level with atomic precision.
It’s even in clothing, where it is used in stain-repellant fabrics, and the automobile industry for bumpers that resist dents and scratches.
Actually, the list is endless. All areas of life will be touched by nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology, which has bipartisan support, doesn’t need – or deserve – to be politicized by Washington.
But if Congress must get involved, protecting intellectual property is the best way to ensure nano progress. It may also need to stop the neo-Luddites from trying to strangle every new technology that promises to benefit mankind.
And Congress may want to consider a permanent research and development tax credit for those doing the heavy lifting on innovation.
However, the best thing lawmakers can do is stay out of the way and let science unleash this burgeoning technology.