Poles apart.(Nanotechnology)

Engineering, July, 2003

Nanotechnology, heralded as the next big technological revolution, is an emerging range of technologies in which medicine and engineering meet physics and chemistry. Supporters claim that nanotechnology will mean faster computers, less pollution and cheaper energy, and longer and healthier lives.

However, this new emerging technology has triggered polarized views. Followers of the first view predict that the technology will clean up the environment, free humanity from disease, ageing and even death, and provide material abundance that will eradicate poverty. However, followers of the second view predict that nanotechnology could signal the end of the world, as the biosphere is destroyed by out-of-control self-replicating nanorobots. In a report...