Re: Art, where's the buzz on nanotech saving America today?

rrc wrote:
Art, back during the IT collapse of '01 and '02, nanotechnology was
heralded as the future savior of the nation. Well... where's all the
buzz nowadays?

Actually, it's very much alive and well. My alma mater recently built a nice and shiny new building dedicated to it.

But I agree that it doesn't get a lot of attention from the media nowadays. For one thing, it's a field that's awash with money, so it doesn't have to go shilling for it any more. On top of that, the attention span of the general public with respect so such things is five years at best and since nanotech's been around for at least that long, it had its hour upon the stage.


If anything, nano's dead and has been replaced by the hydrogen economy
and other high oil price chicanery cerca late 70s malarkey. What gives?
Have the spin doctors on Charlie Rose lost their will to b.s. till they
drop?

It isn't so much the hydrogen economy but anything to do with climate change and what can be done to reduce its effects. You may have noticed that biofuels are presently in fashion as almost every other day, one hears about ethanol and what can be used as feedstock for it. Hybrid motor vehicles are getting about as much attention as well.


There's a strange silence on the messiah of nanotechnology and it seems
to be prevalent with the current misdirection of energy related stories.


Typically, when something new comes on the scene or suddenly gets a lot of attention from the media, it's initially portrayed as "new" and "revolutionary". This is followed by promises, often outlandish, that it will herald a bright, shiny tomorrow. (That's nothing new. Look at some old issues of magazines such as "Popular Science" and you'll see how everything from basement nuclear reactors to flying cars were forecast to be commonplace by now.) After that, there are whispers that the promises may not be fulfilled according to schedule, if at all, and then the whole issue slowly fades away as public attention is directed to something else.

What's happened to nanotech is hardly new.
.