Throughout history of man, since the days of the Greeks and Democritus, people (especially scientists) have thought that matter could be broken down to an indestructible point considered to be the basic component of matter which scientists now call atoms. Through many experiments and trials, scientists have discovered that there are 108 types of atoms along with many isotopes. There are now discoveries of things that are even smaller than the atoms, including, quarks, leptons, etc. But these are not very important in the history of this sophisticated technology.

The exact beginnings and developments of nanotechnology are unclear. The first nanotechnologists may have been medieval glass workers using medieval forges. Of course the glaziers did not understand why what they did to gold made the colors it did. The process called nanofabrication,  specifically the production of gold nanodots, was used by medieval and later Victorian churches, famous for their beautiful stained glass windows. The same nanofabrication applied to various glazes found in ancient glazes. Much of the of the tint in these items (it has been found) depends on the fact that the nanoscale characteristics are unlike microscale characteristics.

A window can look red because of the size of separate nanodots, but will quickly look gold and yellow if the nanodots are pushed together.

Luckily, if enough nanodots are close to each other but not within distance of combining we can see the red color with the plain eye.

Joseph Proust in 1799 may have made a connection when he discovered that chemicals were inclined to merge together as in the formula for water, H²O. Centuries later, the 20th century landmark  discovery of DNA helped to determine a type of measurement that became known as the nanoscale.   James Watson and Francis Crick originally discovered DNA (the proteins of life and their formation) while examining it through a microscope in 1953. The science that developed along with the research into DNA as well as scientific breakthroughs required a scale of measurement that would be small enough yet accurate.  Finally it was decided that DNA would be the nanometer scale used for manufacturing desired proteins.

Achievements in physics, biology, and chemistry have, together, added information relevant to the understanding of nanotechnology. They have made important contributions  necessary to pursue the study of nanotechnology. While there are others who have contributed to the nanoscience, Richard P. Feynman, Ph.D. is the one most credited for starting it all. Dr. Feynman, the 1965 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, gave an extraordinary dinner talk in 1959 to the American Physical Society.  The dinner speech was titled, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom." His speech included the idea that you could write the whole Encyclopedia Britannica ^TM on the head of a pin, which is 1/25000 the normal size. Now that's small! He also spoke about duplicating single atoms, about shrinking the size of the computers (they were a lot bigger than they are now, but he probably meant even smaller than the ones we know today), and developing better techniques for viewing and examining nanotechnology. Towards the end of his speech he offered a $1,000 prize for creating an electric motor that was a maximum 1/64^th of an inch cubed in size. The other prize was for the first person to minimize a page of a book at 1/25000^th scale so it could be clearly interpreted by an electron microscope. Both prizes were later claimed, in 1960 and 1985, respectively.

K. Eric Drexler is the man recognized by most with driving the nanotechnology revolution to where it is today. By increasing recognition of research to the public, educating those who would in the future research and develop nanotechnology, and by lighting up the field, he was presented the first PhD in nanotechnology. In 1992, Drexler also encouraged research before a lawmaking committee. He has also written numerous books about nanotechnology. One of the first, Molecular Engineering: An approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation was written in 1981. Another was, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, printed in 1986, followed by Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution in 1991. These links lead to www.IMM.org, updated and maintained by the Foresight Institute which he helped to fund.

In 1990, IBM  carefully positioned what was known as 35 xenon atoms to spell the company's 3-letter name, making it the world's tiniest company logo. Then Cornell University scientists, produced a non-visible "nanoguitar" which cannot be seen by the naked eye. The strings, only a few atoms across, could be "plucked" by laser beams to play 17 octaves above those made by a typical guitar which could not be heard by the human ear. Following the making of the nanoguitar in 1999, circuits one molecule thick were created. These were the smallest ever made assembled by scientists from the Hewlett-Packard Company in California. The development of these circuits was announced in an essay in the magazine Science on July 16, 1999.