|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
Advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology promise to have major
impacts on human health, wealth, and peace in the coming decades.
Among the expected breakthroughs are orders of magnitude increases
in computer efficiency, human organ restoration using engineered
tissue, designer' materials created from directed assembly of atoms
and molecules, and the emergence of entirely new phenomena in
chemistry and physics. This book includes a collection of essays by
leading scientists, engineers, and social scientists reviewing the
possible uses of these impending technical developments in various
industrial, medical, and national security applications, and the
corresponding ethical, legal, social, economic, and educational
issues that they raise. The report outlines potential areas for
research into societal implications of nanotechnology, as well as
some preliminary suggestions for how potential positive impacts of
nanotechnology can be maximized, while minimizing any possible
negative impacts, real or imagined. This book also provides the
beginning of a blueprint for how one should address second-order
consequences of the new technology, either positive implications or
potential risks. This material was prepared under the auspices of
the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The issues raised
in the book are global in scope, going far beyond the immediate
impact of the NNI. They ask the general questions of how history
and the human condition are affected by technological progress, and
how individuals and institutions can seek to guide that progress in
ways most beneficial to mankind in the long run.
Advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology promise to have major
impacts on human health, wealth, and peace in the coming decades.
Among the expected breakthroughs are orders of magnitude increases
in computer efficiency, human organ restoration using engineered
tissue, designer' materials created from directed assembly of atoms
and molecules, and the emergence of entirely new phenomena in
chemistry and physics. This book includes a collection of essays by
leading scientists, engineers, and social scientists reviewing the
possible uses of these impending technical developments in various
industrial, medical, and national security applications, and the
corresponding ethical, legal, social, economic, and educational
issues that they raise. The report outlines potential areas for
research into societal implications of nanotechnology, as well as
some preliminary suggestions for how potential positive impacts of
nanotechnology can be maximized, while minimizing any possible
negative impacts, real or imagined. This book also provides the
beginning of a blueprint for how one should address second-order
consequences of the new technology, either positive implications or
potential risks.
This volume aims to document the most important worldwide
accomplishments in converging knowledge and technology, including
converging platforms, methods of convergence, societal
implications, and governance in the last ten years. Convergence in
knowledge, technology, and society is the accelerating,
transformative interaction among seemingly distinct scientific
disciplines, technologies, and communities to achieve mutual
compatibility, synergism, and integration, and through this process
to create added value for societal benefit. It is a movement that
is recognized by scientists and thought leaders around the world as
having the potential to provide far-reaching solutions to many of
today's complex knowledge, technology, and human development
challenges. Four essential and interdependent convergence platforms
of human activity are defined in the first part of this report:
nanotechnology-biotechnology-information technology and cognitive
science ("NBIC") foundational tools; Earth-scale environmental
systems; human-scale activities; and convergence methods for
societal-scale activities. The report then presents the main
implications of convergence for human physical potential, cognition
and communication, productivity and societal outcomes, education
and physical infrastructure, sustainability, and innovative and
responsible governance. As a whole, the report presents a new model
for convergence. To effectively take advantage of this potential, a
proactive governance approach is suggested. The study identifies an
international opportunity to develop and apply convergence for
technological, economic, environmental, and societal benefits. The
panel also suggests an opportunity in the United States for
implementing a program aimed at focusing disparate R and D energies
into a coherent activity - a "Societal Convergence Initiative".
This study received input from leading academic, industry,
government, and NGO experts from the United States, Latin America,
Europe, Asia, and Australia.
A revolution is occurring in science and technology, based on the
recently developed ability to measure, manipulate and organize
matter on the nanoscale - 1 to 100 billionths of a meter. At the
nanoscale, physics, chemistry, biology, materials science, and
engineering converge toward the same principles and tools. As a
result, progress in nanoscience will have very far-reaching impact.
The nanoscale is not just another step toward miniaturization, but
a qualitatively new scale. The new behavior is dominated by quantum
mechanics, material confinement in small structures, large
interfacial volume fraction, and other unique properties, phenomena
and processes. Many current theories of matter at the microscale
have critical lengths of nanometer dimensions. These theories will
be inadequate to describe the new phenomena at the nanoscale. As
knowledge in nanoscience increases worldwide, there will likely be
fundamental scientific advances. In tum, this will lead to dramatic
changes in the ways materials, devices, and systems are understood
and created. Innovative nanoscale properties and functions will be
achieved through the control of matter at its building blocks:
atom-by-atom, molecule-by molecule, and
nanostructure-by-nanostructure. Nanotechnology will include the
integration of these nanoscale structures into larger material
components, systems, and architectures. However, within these
larger scale systems the control and construction will remain at
the nanoscale."
Advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology promise great
technical breakthroughs in the coming decades. In this book,
leading scientists, engineers, and social scientists review the
possible uses of these impending technical developments in various
industrial, medical, and national security applications. They also
examine the corresponding ethical, legal, social, economic, and
educational issues that these developments raise.
|
You may like...
Ab Wheel
R209
R149
Discovery Miles 1 490
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
Loot
Nadine Gordimer
Paperback
(2)
R398
R330
Discovery Miles 3 300
|