The Smallest Revolution

As revolutions go, this is no big deal: stain-resistant pants, sunscreens that go on clear, hockey sticks with extra zing. But perhaps that’s the point with nanotechnology. When the real transformation is occurring in spaces dwarfed by the thickness of this page, the results may seem inconsequential at first. Yet with science and capital now collaborating in manipulating atoms, these products are only the start. Its promoters predict that nanotechnology will become as common as plastic. Its critics agree, and warn of impacts as inescapable as the plastic jetsam now littering the globe. Most remarkably, this revolution is being launched with only the smallest idea of its consequences. ...