Nanotechnology in Our Lives

Nanotechnology in our lives; Is it true that good things come in small packages?

Throughout the years, the technology available has increased drastically. Technology has evolved from the things that were once seen as unbelievable and mindboggling, to common everyday devices and some of which are now a part of us. Thanks to technology we are able to examine and solve problems now that were only a dream to many scientists 25 years ago. As we have increase our ability to use these devices, the developments and progress in artificial intelligence and molecular technology have created a new form of technology; Nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology is basically “an extension of existing sciences” (M.H. Fulekar 2010), only at a much smaller, nano, scale. Nanotechnology is the understanding and controlling of matter at sizes of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, smaller than a strand of human hair, which is nearly 80,000 nanometers thick. figure 1 Using nanoscale science, phenomenal engineering, technological, and medical ideas, it covers a whole range of various developments. Although it contributes to many areas of science, chemistry plays the most important role to its use and development.

This is the building of nanomaterials into defined, complex structures, atom-by-atom or molecule-by-molecule. Thus, chemistry forms a base for nanotechnology by providing tailor-made molecules and polymers. (3) All manufactured products are made from atoms. "The properties of those products depend on how those atoms are arranged. For example if we rearrange the atoms in coal, we get diamonds. If we rearrange the atoms in sand (and add a pinch of impurities) we get computer chips. If we rearrange the atoms in dirt, water and air we get grass." (5) Nowadays ...

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...s to question what implications they may have on our health, as nanotechnology is a new type of science.

Nanotechnology may also allow us to create more powerful weapons which are very dangerous. Weapons are an obvious negative use of nanotechnology. By extending today's weapon capabilities by being able to create miniaturizing guns, explosives, and electronic components of missiles would be deadly. However, also with nanotechnology, armies could also develop dissemblers to attack physical structures or even biological organism at the molecular level.(9) "On the instrumental level, there is also the possibility of nanotechnology being used to develop chemical weapons and because they will be able to develop the chemicals from the atom scale up, critics fear that chemical weapons developed from nano particles will be more dangerous than present chemical weapons."