Process

The reason for carrying out an interview is to find out the opinions of a professional working in the field of nanotechnology. That would enable us to obtain details that we would not be able to obtain through research, as it contains personal opinions and foresights into the future of nanotechnology. As our research is on the Impact of nanotechnology on the society, the impact aspect of the research cannot be found through research and thus first-hand accounts of professionals would be more valuable. We interviewed a professor from NUS (the National University of Singapore) Professor Wu. Professor Wu is currently teaching a general course about nanotechnology in the National University of Singapore, one of Singapore's top universities.

The questions we asked were regarding the impact of nanotechnology, the future of nanotechnology, the updates of nanotechnology and also a few minor technical aspects of nanotechnology. However, our main question was, How has nanotechnology impacted the society and which of these forms cannot be attained using other earlier technologies.
The professor gave us the background information about the topic, as well as a lecture on the technology behind nanotechnology. He first introduced the history of nanotechnology, how it was foresaw and founded. We found out from him that, it was with the help of mass media and strong government support that nanotechnology would be in its very successful state today. The worldwide governmental support has lead to wide spread acceptance of this new technology. Like what Professor Wu said "Nanotechnology would be affecting all aspects of life". This is only made possible by the support it received, and thus would be able to be incorporated into many daily objects.

Without nanotechnology, there would be no IT industry as everything would be in huge pieces instead of our small devices these days. The revolution was started by the transistor in the first computer, which was huge and only had 5 megabytes of memory. With the need to shrink things, people devised nanotechnology to make everything in our world compact and not taking up too much space. From then on, the computer has been shrunk by many times. Like what the professor said, "Without nanotechnology, there would be no big storage spaces in small pieces". He explained further by explaining that the amount of storage space in a fixed area is determined by how fine we can encode the data.

There are other uses of nanotechnology as illustrated by the professor. These include the Badminton rackets that incorporate nanotechnology within them. They are supposedly lighter, able to swing faster, and have more spin. The nanotubes are also very strong, which have many advantages over other materials.

He suggested that there could be a lift to space next time, with the supporting pillar being constructed of nanotubes. He also said that our world would be very reliant on nanotechnology in the future, which can be seen from the rising number of institutions teaching nanotechnology, and researching it. According to the professor, he speculated that the worldwide workforce needed to support nanotechnology would be 2 million by year 2015.

As for our query on whether nanotechnology could be smaller, he said that he cannot predict what would happen in the future, but he listed the restrictions to the size of nanotechnology. He touched on the quantum effect, explaining that the electrons need space to move about. Next was the stability problem of the nanochip. Third, the main problem is the cost of production. The main use of nanotechnology today is to supply to the needs of the people, and to reap profits for the production companies. In this case, the companies would not be willing to do a non-profitable research or business. However, he says that if the main purpose of shrinking the nanochips is for research, it would be definitely possible with the vast amounts of time and effort used.

As professor Wu says, "Nothing is impossible in science".

Finally, on a conclusive note, he said that nanotechnology would not get phased out. He explained to us that phasing out a technology would cause the world market to suffer huge losses, and also that certain technologies can still be used for certain objects. It is not necessary to have only 1 technology in existence. However, nanotechnology could be replaced by other forms of technology next time. That however is not definite as Professor Wu says. Nanotechnology would be still applicable certain fields.

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