Beyond the world of atoms, at scales smaller than the smallest nuclei, a new world comes into view, populated by an array of colorful elementary particles: strange and charmed quarks, muons and neutrinos, gluons and photons, and many others, all interacting in beautifully intricate patterns. Beyond the Nanoworld tells the story of how this new real

Our lives are about to be changed by new technologies that operate on a scale too small to be seen by even the most powerful optical microscopes. Devices measured in nanometers-billionths of a meter-have set off a nanotechnology revolution. In Travels to the Nanoworld, Michael Gross takes us deep into this miniature universe and describes natural processes and new technologies that will make modern machines look like relics from the Stone Age. Starting with the model of the living cell, whose vital processes are directed and carried out by structures with dimensions on the nanometer scale, Gross shows how biochemists are beginning to understand the mechanisms of the "nanotechnology of nature." Soon science will have the knowledge and technology to generate artificial systems that will perform similar tasks, and through them will find new treatments for disease, substitutes for toxic waste, and alternatives to carbon fuel.

"Nanoweapons describes the deadliest generation of military weaponry the world has ever seen and offers concrete recommendations for controlling their future use, thus avoiding global war and the end of humanity."--Provided by publisher.

Even as we tentatively enter the nanotechnology era, we are now encountering the 50th anniversary of the invention of the IC. Will silicon continue to be the pre-eminent material and will Moore’s Law continue unabated, albeit in a broader economic venue, in the nanotechnology era? This monograph addresses these issues by a re-examination of the scientific and technological foundations of the micro-electronics era. It also features two visionary articles of Nobel laureates.

As part of the Physics 2010 decadal survey project, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation requested that the National Research Council assess the opportunities, over roughly the next decade, in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) science and technology. In particular, the National Research Council was asked to cover the state of AMO science, emphasizing recent accomplishments and identifying new and compelling scientific questions. Controlling the Quantum World, discusses both the roles and challenges for AMO science in instrumentation; scientific research near absolute zero; development of extremely intense x-ray and laser sources; exploration and control of molecular processes; photonics at the nanoscale level; and development of quantum information technology. This book also offers an assessment of and recommendations about critical issues concerning maintaining U.S. leadership in AMO science and technology.

Still valid and useful after a decade, this work presents critical reviews of the present position and future trends in modern chemical research. It contains short and concise reports on chemistry, each written by world-renowned experts.

A tour through a world too small to see with a microscope: air, ice, diamonds, aspirin, fuel cells, and other structures viewed and described in the scale of nanometers. The world is made up of structures too small to see with the naked eye, too small to see even with an electron microscope. Einstein established the reality of atoms and molecules in the early 1900s. How can we see a world measured in fractions of nanometers? (Most atoms are less than one nanometer, less than one-billionth of a meter, in diameter.) This beautiful and fascinating book gives us a tour of the invisible nanoscale world. It offers many vivid color illustrations of atomic structures, each accompanied by a short, engagingly written essay. The structures advance from the simple (air, ice) to the complex (supercapacitator, rare earth magnet). Each subject was chosen not in search of comprehensiveness but because it illustrates how atomic structure creates a property (such as hardness, color, or toxicity), or because it has a great story, or simply because it is beautiful. Thus we learn how diamonds ride volcanoes to the earth's surface (if they came up more slowly, they'd be graphite, as in pencils); what form of carbon is named after Buckminster Fuller; who won in the x-ray vs. mineralogy professor smackdown; how a fuel cell works; when we use spinodal decomposition in our daily lives (it involves hot water and a package of Jell-O), and much more. The amazing color illustrations by Stephen Deffeyes are based on data from x-ray diffraction (a method used in crystallography). They are not just pretty pictures but visualizations of scientific data derived directly from those data. Together with Kenneth Deffeyes's witty commentary, they offer a vivid demonstration of the diversity and beauty found at the nanometer scale.