Nanotechnology

"the next big thing is really small"

The term "nanotechnology" refers to building things at nanometer scale.

What is a nanometer? The prefix "nano" means a billionth, which is the same as 0.000000001 (or 10-9 in scientific notation). So a nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and that’s the scale of atoms and molecules. Think of a person that’s 6 feet tall (1,830,000,000 nanometers). A hair from that person’s head is around 50,000 nanometers wide: if you could split that hair into 50,000 separate strands, each would be a nanometer wide. A molecule of DNA is only 2.5 nanometers wide.

Nanotechnology is the science of rearranging atoms to make something else.
For example, "If we rearrange atoms in coal, we can make diamonds. If you rearrange the atoms in sand we can make computer chips. If you rearrange the atoms in dirt, water, and air you can make potatoes".

So, what tools can be used to rearrange atoms? Nanorobots!!

A nanobot working on a blood cell

Atoms are the smallest particles of elements. Everything in the world is made of atoms.

Nano in greek means "dwarf", which means small.

Nanotechnology can lower the cost of most items because you donot waste resources while building them.