Nano-A-Go-Go

Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey reviews two nanotech books in today's Wall Street Journal.

The link is for subscribers only, but here's the opening:

Prince Charles is leery of it. Activists want to ban it. Michael Crichton has written a scary bestseller about it. And financial analysts predict that it will be a trillion-dollar global business in a few years.

It also has a strange name.

Nanotechnology is the science of the very small. How small? A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Ten hydrogen atoms lined up in a row would fit within a single one. The width of the dot above this letter "i" ranges across about a million nanometers. In the world of the nanocosm, the tiny etchings on our densest microchips are vast highways.

And nanotechnology is coming on fast. "For the first time in history, a technical revolution will approach the abruptness of a political event," writes William Atkinson. "No one in any age has heard, seen, or felt anything like it. But you will." He adds: "A.D. 2003 will seem antediluvian not in 50 years but in 15."

Such claims may seem far-fetched, but they may be right. And obviously such a revolution, if it comes about, will have major effects on business. Already places like Northwestern and Stanford universities are offering minicourses on nanotechnology for business executives.