Toumey, Chris --- "Tracing and Disputing the Story of Nanotechnology" [2010] ELECD 711; in Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew (eds), "International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies

Editor(s): Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446731

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: Tracing and Disputing the Story of Nanotechnology

Author(s): Toumey, Chris

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

3 Tracing and disputing the story of
nanotechnology
Chris Toumey


3.1 INTRODUCTION

Nanotechnology is a multi-faceted area of scientific investigation, and as
such it has descended from many scientific and engineering disciplines. It
makes no sense to speak of a single origin of nanotechnology. Instead,
there were many discoveries, experiments, inventions, publications, and
other developments that contributed to the formation of nanotechnol-
ogy, and continue to do so today. A history of nanotechnology, to be
complete and accurate, would recognize many contributions from many
sources and many disciplines, including electronics, materials science,
molecular biology, quantum physics, synthetic chemistry and electron
microscopy, without specifying one event that supposedly initiated every-
thing else. One could correctly say that some events were more important
than others, but this is not equivalent to a simple reductionist portrait of
the origin of nanotechnology.
Nevertheless, it is attractive to some people to wrap nanotechnology in
a simple logic. Often it takes this form: everything is made of atoms and
molecules (which is true); nanotechnology is the observation, manipula-
tion and manufacture of matter at the scale of atoms and molecules (which
is also true); from this we conclude that nanotechnology is the philoso-
pher's stone that will give us unlimited control over matter (which is not
likely, because matter at the nanoscale must obey certain laws of nature
that we cannot violate or repeal). The historical equivalent to this simple
logic is to say that one singular event constituted the discovery of this ...