Essay, Paragraph, Speech on “Nanotechnology” Complete English Essay for Class 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, Graduation classes.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology, in its traditional sense, means building things from the bottom up with atomic precision using techniques and tools being developed today to make complete high performance products. Nano-scale activities take place around us every day in the natural world – photosynthesis and the creation of energy in the human body to name just two. It is a highly multidisciplinary field drawing from other fields of science as well. The comparative size of a nano meter to a meter is the same as that of a marble to the size of the earth. Or another way 0 putting it is the amount a man’s beard grows in the time it takes him to raise the razor to his face.

In the mid nineteenth century, physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture focused on the field of miniaturization and how he believed man would create increasingly smaller, powerful devices. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, K. Eric Drexler introduced the term nanotechnology. He talked about building machines on the scale of molecules-a few nano meters wide: motors, robot arms, and even whole computers far smaller than a cell. Drexler spent the next ten years describing and analysing these incredible devices, and responding to accusations of science fiction. Scientific research in this regard really expanded only over the last decade.

A lot of everyday products use nanotechnology. Sunscreens made with nano-particles of zinc oxide or titanium oxide no longer leave the whitish colour their predecessors did because the nano-particles are less visible. By coating fabrics with a thin layer of zinc oxide nano-particles, clothes are being created now that give better protection from UV radiation. Some clothes even have nano-particles in the form of little hairs or whiskers that help repel water and other materials, making them stain–resistant. Adding nano-particles to scratch-resistant coatings has increased the resistance of these coatings to chipping and scratching and the uses of this are widespread covering almost everything from cars to eyeglass lenses. Antibacterial bandages using silver nano-particles are heill12. main’ ractured where the silver nano-particles effectively smother harmful cells, killing them. Still, this market is just in its nascent stage. However, inventors and corporations aren’t far behind. Today, more than 13,000 patents registered with the U.S. Patent Office have the word “nano”-in them.

The most immediate challenge in nanotechnology is that we need to learn more about materials and their properties at the nano-scale. Because elements at the nano-scale behave differently than they do in their bulk form, there’s a concern that some nano-particles could be toxic. Some doctors worry that the nano-particles are so small, that they could easily cross the blood-brain barrier, a membrane that protects the brain from harmful chemicals in the bloodstream. If we plan on using nano particles to coat everything from our clothing to our highways, we need to be sure that they won’t poison us. Like computers or electricity before it, nanotechnology will offer greatly improved efficiency in almost every facet of life. As a general-purpose technology, it will be dual-use, meaning it will have many commercial uses and it also will have many military uses—making far more. powerful weapons and tools of surveillance.

Thus it represents not only wonderful benefits for humanity, but also grave risks. Theoretically, it might be able to make us smarter, stronger and give us other abilities ranging from rapid healing to night vision. Thus we might end transforming ourselves from human to trans-human- the next step on man’s evolutionary path perhaps? Is this a path we would like to take? Since all technology starts out expensive would that mean we’d end creating two races of people- a wealthy race of modified humans and a poorer population of unaltered people? It could also have an impact on the world economy at large. If molecular manufacturing becomes a reality, it would mean we could build anything at the click of a button. What would then happen to all the manufacturing jobs? If you can create anything using a replicator, what happens to currency? Would we move to a completely electronic economy? Would we even need money at all?

Whether we’ll actually need to answer all these questions is a matter of debate. Perhaps these concerns are at best premature, and probably unnecessary. Even so, nanotechnology will definitely continue to impact us as we learn more about the enormous potential of the nano-scale. So whatever the scenario, one thing is for certain and that is that nanotechnology is here to stay and impact our lives in ways that we probably only associated with fictional movies like “Star-Trek”.

( 762 Words )