MUTALK Archives

September 2007

MUTALK@LISTSERV.MIAMIOH.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
jarid boon <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Miami University conversation <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 16 Sep 2007 12:51:02 +0000
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (17 lines)
International company Web Electronic Industry
is taking the candidates in the USA for the position of Local Agent.
We are looking for the trustworthy person with excellent organizational and communicative skills.
Good knowledge of computer and business relations practice will be your advantage.
This is a part-time job which can be combined with any permanent or another part-time job.
Average workload is up to 8 hours a week.
No special experience is necessary. Excellent compensation
package, the salary starts from $20,000 a year.
If you got interested in our vacancy and you have any questions,
please contact us [log in to unmask]
The offer is for USA citizens only.

Yet, there remains a problem with the "nano" in both nanoscience and nanotechnology. "Nanotechnology's a term with not too much new in it. It existed a long time ago," says Dai. Indeed, the characteristic length of bonds that have always been under scrutiny in the molecular sciences is on the order of a nanometer. Chidsey adds, "I worry that the term confuses people about what's important: the length scale itself is not important." Rather, it is the novel properties that structures exhibit at the nanoscale that is. As Dai puts it, "We work on carbon nanotubes not because they are small, but because they are interesting. They just happen to be nano." For all the problems with the term nanotechnology, though, it may have done some good. Chidsey remarks, "Just as nanotechnology has attracted the attention of outsiders, it also stimulates us internally: it provides a context for tackling and defining grand challenges-things so out there you wouldn't tackle them otherwise."
As a term, nanotechnology is clearly ambiguous. Moreover, it has already been claimed by the Drexlerians, apostles of K. Eric Drexler, who was one of the first to popularize nanotechnology with the publication of his 1987 book, Engineers of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. According to Professor Steve Block, the Drexlerians have a futurist vision of nanotechnology in which self-replicating molecular assemblers programmed at the molecular-scale manufacture arbitrary products at the atomic level, molecule by molecule, bottom up. Some scientists have attempted to distance themselves from the futurist Drexlerians by claiming the term nanoscience. There's also another motivation for the excision of "technology" in this term. Nanoscience, as a term, captures the learning-the fundamental understanding of processes and materials at the nanoscale-that many scientists feel is necessary before or at the same time that researchers turn to engineering solutions. The term nanote
 chnology, on the other hand, reinforces what Chidsey describes as a "glib attitude" that "technology is the goal of science at this length scale."
Yet, there remains a problem with the "nano" in both nanoscience and nanotechnology. "Nanotechnology's a term with not too much new in it. It existed a long time ago," says Dai. Indeed, the characteristic length of bonds that have always been under scrutiny in the molecular sciences is on the order of a nanometer. Chidsey adds, "I worry that the term confuses people about what's important: the length scale itself is not important." Rather, it is the novel properties that structures exhibit at the nanoscale that is. As Dai puts it, "We work on carbon nanotubes not because they are small, but because they are interesting. They just happen to be nano." For all the problems with the term nanotechnology, though, it may have done some good. Chidsey remarks, "Just as nanotechnology has attracted the attention of outsiders, it also stimulates us internally: it provides a context for tackling and defining grand challenges-things so out there you wouldn't tackle them otherwise."

ATOM RSS1 RSS2