The strange new world of Nanoscience, narrated by Stephen Fry

Summary

This script delves into the fascinating world of nanotechnology, where objects as small as a nanometer significantly impact our daily life, from the colors in a sunset to gecko's tree-gripping abilities. It explores the nanoscale's unique properties, such as increased surface area affecting reactions and light behavior, leading to innovations in materials and medicine. The script also touches on the potential of self-organization at the nano level and the revolutionary impact of nanotechnology on our future, including the possibility of molecular machines and advanced medical treatments.

Takeaways

• 🧔 A man's beard grows approximately five nanometers every second, illustrating just how tiny a nanometer is.
• 🔬 The nanoscale is a realm where unique properties and behaviors emerge, influencing everything from sunsets to gecko adhesion.
• 👁️ Powerful tools like electron microscopes allow us to see and explore the nanoscale, revealing details invisible to the naked eye.
• 📏 Surface area plays a crucial role at the nanoscale, where smaller particles have significantly larger reactive surfaces, affecting their behavior.
• 🌈 Light behaves differently at the nanoscale, with materials reflecting specific colors based on their size, leading to phenomena like the iridescent colors of butterfly wings.
• 🌱 Nature has developed nanoscale structures over billions of years, inspiring innovations in technology, such as water-repellent surfaces and advanced filtration systems.
• 🦶 The nanoscale microstructures found in insect feet enable them to adhere to surfaces, offering insights for designing non-stick or high-adhesion materials.
• 🏗️ Nanotechnology enables the creation of new materials with unique properties, such as stretchable electronics and ultra-thin, strong structures.
• ⚕️ Nanomedicine holds the potential to revolutionize healthcare by delivering drugs directly to targeted areas, such as tumors, and enabling advanced diagnostic techniques.
• 🌌 The future of nanotechnology could lead to groundbreaking advancements, including molecular machines that could build anything from the atomic level up, fundamentally altering how we interact with the world.

Q & A

What is the significance of a nanometer, as mentioned in the script?

A nanometer is a very small unit of measurement, equivalent to one-billionth of a meter. The script emphasizes its smallness by comparing it to a man's beard growth, which is just five nanometers every second. Nanometers are important because many physical and chemical phenomena occur at this scale, affecting everything from the color of a sunset to the way geckos stick to surfaces.

How does the surface area change when an object is divided into smaller parts?

As an object is divided into smaller parts, its surface area increases significantly. For example, if you take a cube and divide it into eight smaller cubes, the total surface area doubles. This increase in surface area allows for more reactions to occur, which is why materials like powdered sugar dissolve faster than sugar cubes.

Why do particles behave differently at the nanoscale?

Particles behave differently at the nanoscale due to the increased surface area and the unique interactions between particles. At this scale, surface effects dominate, leading to properties such as increased reactivity, different optical properties, and the ability to self-organize into complex structures.

What role do nanostructures play in the coloration of butterfly wings?

The bright iridescent colors of butterfly wings are a result of nanostructures on their scales. These scales are covered with tiny ridges that are finely tuned to reflect only specific wavelengths of light, such as blue. The structure's ability to reflect light changes if the surrounding environment changes, for example, by introducing liquid, which alters the color perceived.

How do certain tropical plants use nanotechnology to repel water?

Some tropical plants have leaves with nanostructures that prevent water from sticking, causing it to roll off the surface. These structures create a water-repellent surface, which can keep the leaves clean and dry. By mimicking these structures, scientists can create synthetic surfaces that are highly water-repellent.

What is self-organization in the context of nanotechnology?

Self-organization in nanotechnology refers to the process where particles at the nanoscale spontaneously form organized structures due to the forces acting at that scale. This happens because particles tend to stick together easily, forming complex and often beautiful patterns, such as those resembling the Eiffel Tower or hexagonal stacks.

How could nanotechnology revolutionize medical treatments?

Nanotechnology could revolutionize medical treatments by allowing the development of nanoparticles that target specific cells, such as cancerous tumors. These particles could deliver drugs directly to the tumor or even identify and highlight the location of cancer cells, leading to more effective and precise treatments.

What potential does stretchy electronics have in the future?

Stretchy electronics, made possible by applying thin layers of gold onto rubber, could lead to flexible devices such as mobile phones that can be stretched, wrapped around the wrist, or embedded in clothing. This innovation could change how we interact with technology, making devices more versatile and integrated into everyday life.

What are molecular machines, and why are they important?

Molecular machines are tiny structures at the nanoscale that perform specific tasks, often mimicking natural processes found in cells. These machines could potentially build anything we want by assembling materials atom by atom, leading to unprecedented advancements in manufacturing, medicine, and technology.

How does the scanning tunneling microscope contribute to nanotechnology?

The scanning tunneling microscope allows scientists to visualize and manipulate individual atoms, providing the most detailed view of matter at the nanoscale. It has revolutionized our understanding of atomic structures and enables the precise construction of new materials, a fundamental aspect of nanotechnology.

Outlines

00:00

🔬 Introduction to the Nanoscale

The script introduces the concept of the nanoscale, emphasizing its minuscule size in comparison to familiar measurements. It explains that while a nanometer is incredibly small, the effects of nanoscale phenomena are visible in everyday life, such as the colors of a sunset or the ability of geckos to adhere to surfaces. The human fascination with measurement is highlighted, contrasting the sizes of mountains, football pitches, and the human body with the microscopic scale of ants, skin cells, bacteria, and viruses. The script then delves into the nanoscale, describing DNA as a prime example with its diameter of 2 nanometers. It introduces electron microscopes as the tool for visualizing the nanoscale and sets the stage for exploring the nano world with examples like a coin's surface and a fly's wing.

05:01

🌌 Nanoscale Properties and Behavior

This paragraph explores the unique properties and behaviors of materials at the nanoscale. It discusses how surface area plays a significant role in reactivity, using the examples of powdered sugar dissolving faster than sugar cubes and the high reactivity of aluminum nanoparticles in rocket fuel. The script also touches on the optical properties of nanoscale materials, explaining how small particles can selectively reflect certain colors of light, leading to the color changes observed in gold as its size decreases. The paragraph further investigates the nanostructures of a butterfly's wing, which reflect blue light due to nano ridges, and how replacing air with liquid can change the reflected color to green. It concludes by highlighting the potential of learning from nature's nanoscale structures for human applications, such as water-repellent surfaces and insect-adhesive materials.

10:02

🌿 Nature's Nanoscale Innovations and Applications

The script highlights the ingenious use of the nanoscale by nature, such as the water-repellent leaves of tropical plants and the adhesive feet of ants. It describes how these natural nanostructures can inspire human-made surfaces that are difficult for insects to climb or that can repel substances like honey. The paragraph also delves into the nanoscale properties of pitcher plants, which use a super hydrophilic surface to spread water across their surfaces, creating a slippery environment for insects. This knowledge is applied to develop new water filters that can remove even the smallest contaminants from water. The script then transitions to the potential of nanotechnology in creating new materials and structures with unique properties, such as stretchable electronics and self-organizing nanostructures with various applications.

15:03

🛠️ Nanotechnology's Potential and Future

The final paragraph discusses the limitations of current materials and how nanotechnology is pushing boundaries to overcome these constraints. It describes an experiment with gold layers on rubber that demonstrate stretchability at the nanoscale due to the formation of cracks that allow for flexibility. The script envisions a future where nanotechnology could lead to the creation of flexible electronics, stronger buildings, and more efficient medical treatments, such as nanoparticles for drug delivery or tumor targeting. It also introduces the concept of molecular machines, which are already at work within our bodies, and the possibility of constructing more complex versions that could revolutionize our lives. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the potential of nanotechnology to be the next major technological leap, inviting the audience to explore this fascinating field.

Keywords

💡Nanometer

A nanometer is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth of a meter. It is used to measure things at an extremely small scale, such as atoms and molecules. In the video, the concept of a nanometer is introduced by comparing it to the growth rate of a man’s beard, emphasizing the tiny scale at which nanotechnology operates.

💡Electron Microscope

An electron microscope is a powerful tool that uses beams of electrons to visualize objects at the nanoscale. It allows scientists to see and explore the structure of materials at an atomic level, which is far beyond the capabilities of traditional light microscopes. The video uses the electron microscope to reveal the detailed structures of a fly's wing and a coin, illustrating the alien landscapes that exist at the nanoscale.

💡Surface Area

Surface area refers to the total area that the surface of an object occupies. At the nanoscale, surface area becomes critically important because smaller particles have a much larger surface area relative to their volume. This increased surface area allows for more chemical reactions to take place, as illustrated in the video by the reactivity of aluminum nanoparticles compared to larger chunks of aluminum.

💡Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles are tiny particles that measure in nanometers. Due to their small size, they exhibit unique physical and chemical properties that are different from those of bulk materials. In the video, nanoparticles of aluminum are described as being highly reactive, even capable of being used in rocket fuel, showcasing their potential applications in technology and medicine.

💡Color Reflection

Color reflection at the nanoscale involves how tiny particles reflect different wavelengths of light, resulting in visible color changes. The video explains how as gold particles get smaller, they stop reflecting gold and instead reflect colors like red, purple, and blue, eventually becoming invisible. This phenomenon is used to explain the vibrant iridescent colors seen in nature, such as on butterfly wings.

💡Superhydrophilic Surface

A superhydrophilic surface is a type of surface that strongly attracts water, causing it to spread evenly and thinly across the surface. The video mentions this in the context of pitcher plants, which use nanostructures to create such surfaces, making them extremely slippery and aiding in trapping prey. This concept is also applied to technology, such as in the development of water filters.

💡Self-Organization

Self-organization refers to the process by which particles or molecules spontaneously arrange themselves into ordered structures without external guidance. At the nanoscale, this phenomenon allows for the creation of complex and functional nanostructures, as demonstrated in the video where different experimental conditions result in the formation of varied and intricate nanoscale architectures.

💡Molecular Machines

Molecular machines are devices constructed at the molecular scale that can perform specific tasks, often mimicking the natural processes occurring within living cells. The video highlights that molecular machines are already functioning in our bodies, converting food into energy and repairing cells, and envisions future applications where they could be used to create anything from new materials to medical treatments.

💡Stretchable Electronics

Stretchable electronics refer to electronic devices that can be bent, stretched, or flexed without breaking. This is made possible by applying a thin layer of gold onto rubber, which forms cracks that allow the material to stretch. The video suggests that this technology could lead to innovations like flexible mobile phones or electronics embedded in clothing.

💡Nanomedicine

Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology in medicine, particularly for diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases at a molecular level. In the video, nanomedicine is discussed in the context of developing nanoparticles that can target and destroy cancerous tumors, representing a significant advancement in medical technology and treatment.

Highlights

A man's beard grows five nanometers every second, emphasizing the minuscule scale of nanometers.

Nanoscale phenomena contribute to everyday occurrences like the red color of sunsets and gecko adhesion to trees.

The advent of electron microscopes has enabled the visualization of nanoscale structures.

Electron microscopes reveal the intricate details of a fly's wing and the 'Zed' on a coin.

Nanoparticles exhibit unique properties due to their large surface area, affecting reactions and behaviors differently.

Powdered sugar dissolves faster than sugar cubes due to increased surface area for reactions.

Nanoparticles of aluminum are highly reactive and used in rocket fuel due to their surface area.

Light behaves differently at the nanoscale, with particles reflecting specific colors based on their size.

Butterfly wings and beetle shells demonstrate iridescent colors due to nanostructures that selectively reflect light.

Nature's nanostructures can be replicated to create water-repellent surfaces and improve material properties.

Ants' feet have nanostructures that allow them to stick to surfaces and carry heavy loads.

Piter plants use nanoscale grooves to create super hydrophilic surfaces that help them capture insects.

Nanostructures can self-organize under certain conditions, leading to the creation of new materials.

Researchers are exploring nanoscale manipulation for potential applications in electronics and medicine.

Scanning tunneling microscopes allow for the imaging and manipulation of individual atoms.

Nanotechnology could lead to the development of molecular machines capable of constructing anything.

The potential of nanotechnology in medicine includes targeted drug delivery and cancer treatment.

Nanoscale research is pushing the boundaries of materials science, with applications in various industries.

The future of nanotechnology may include implantable devices for communication and enhanced connectivity.

Transcripts

what is

nano a man's beard grows five

nanometers every

second suffice it to say a nanometer is

very very

small despite its size you can see the

effects of things happening at the Nano

scale all around you they give the

sunset its red color

allow Birds to navigate and help geckos

stick to

trees but it's only recently that we've

actually been able to see down to the

Nano

scale this is nano U we humans are

strange creatures aren't we If we're

honest we like to measure things Earth's

tallest mountains are over 8,000 M tall

a football pitch is around 100 m I

myself am about 2 m when I'm standing up

in shoes good afternoon ants are a few

millimet long skin cells about 30

micromet we can't see things this small

a bacterium is about 2 micrometers

smaller still are viruses and fages and

so we go down to DNA our molecular

blueprints DNA is 2 billionths of a

meter in diameter or more convenient V

two nanometers the units that we used to

measure the building blocks of

everything welcome to the Nano

scale to explore the Nano scale we use

very powerful machines called electron

microscopes today we're going to look at

uh two things that you may have seen

before we're going to look at a fly and

a coin

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so this is the Zed on the

coin this is the fly's wing and who

would have thought that it would had all

these little hairs sticking out from it

the tip of each of those hairs is only

about 600 or 700 nanom in

diameter when we use electron

microscopes we explore new and alien

Landscapes it's a strange New World down

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there the Nano world isn't just unusual

looking things behave differently there

too one reason for this is surface area

if you take a cube and lay the surface

flat you can see how much of that Cube

can react with the outside

world if you divide the SA same Cube

into eight little cubes the surface area

is twice as big if you keep making

smaller cubes the surface area becomes

immense more surface means more area for

reactions this is why powdered sugar

dissolves faster than sugar

cubes big lumps of aluminium are not

very reactive but Nano particles of

aluminium

are so reactive they can be used in

Rocket

Fuel another way you can show this is

with flour cuz flour doesn't burn very

easily when it's in a pile because it

hasn't got enough surface area but if

you mix it with a lot of air there's

something quite different of

course

ow light also behaves differently as you

head down to the Nano

scale white light contains all colors

when particles get really small they

start to bounce only certain colors back

so you see them as those

colors as gold gets smaller it stops

looking gold and instead reflect red

purple blue and finally becomes

invisible when it's too small to reflect

any colors of light that you can

see these strange properties of light

can be very

useful welcome to Nature's

Nano I've always wondered how

butterflies and beetles can make these

strong iridescent

colors so if we take a butterfly wing

and we put it on the microscope

we see thousands and thousands of small

little bright blue scales each of these

scales is covered by little riches

running across a scale each of these

little riches if you cut right through

them look like a Christmas tree this

structure is finely tuned to reflect

only the blue part of light so the

butterfly appears bright

blue if you just replace the air in this

Nano structure with a bit of liquid

you'll see that it changes color from

bright blue to bright green it fills in

the gaps around the Nano structure and

makes it better at reflecting green

light when the liquid evaporates it

returns to reflecting blue please don't

squirt

butterflies life has spent

3.8 billion years finding clever ways to

use the nanoscale now we can understand

Nature's Nano secrets we can use them

for

ourselves many tropical plants have

leaves where water just runs off this

keeps them clean if we look at the Nano

scale we can see Tiny structures which

stop the water from sticking by copying

these structures we can make our own

water repellent

surfaces

some that even honey doesn't stick

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to ants have really cool feet they can

stick upside down to surfaces holding up

to 100 times their own weight without

falling down we look closely we see tiny

little pats on their feet that help them

to

stick by investigating the micro

structure of insect's feet we can Design

Surfaces hard for them to climb bad luck

for

cockroaches piter plants eat insects

that slip into them but they don't work

unless all of their Rim is covered in

water to make sure they're as slippery

as possible they have a nano trick up

their sleeves you can see how the water

spreads even upwards against the gravity

if we look at them we see that they have

lots of grooves running across their

room and in between these grooves if we

look on a nano scale there are even

smaller

grooves this is called a super

hydrophilic surface which means that the

surface likes the water and pulls it

across

itself once the water is spread thinly

across these micro and Nano grooves they

become very slippery and it's goodbye

ants hello picture plant

Dinner

hydrophilic surfaces have lots of uses

but one particularly excellent one is in

a new water

filter this can filter even the tiniest

bugs from Dirty Water making it safe to

drink even really dirty

water

looking around the natural world is a

great way to pick up ideas for things to

make ourselves but with nanotchnology we

can make new structures that nature has

never even

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tried down at the Nano scale things are

gloopy and there's lots of friction this

means particles stick together really

easily and if this happens again again

and again new and complicated structures

can be formed this is called self

organization scientists have been

carefully experimenting with different

conditions to see what sorts of new Nano

structures they can create the results

are

astonishing here are some samples I made

under various conditions but when we

zoom in on the nanoscale we can see that

they are extremely different so these

ones me of the Eiffel

Tower they're really quite beautiful

these hexagons all stacked on top of

each other like uh like pyramids we can

also make other materials such as really

thin wires uh ones that look like

pancakes um or ones that look like

flowers all these new structures have

different properties soon they'll be

changing the way we live from solar

panels that we spray onto our roofs

to making computers and batteries so

small that they're

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invisible the materials we use have some

severe limitations push things too far

they they

break but nanor researchers are

discovering ways around these

limitations Electronics is made out of

silicon and silicon is not very stretchy

wow but we found a way to make

Electronics stretchy when you put a

really thin layer of gold onto Rubber

and you stretch the rubber we found that

the gold doesn't

break this is because when gold is just

a few nanometers thin it forms cracks

and these cracks actually allow gold to

stretch

that means that in future you can take

your mobile phone stretch it wrap it

around your wrist or even embedded in

your

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clothes using the new materials made

possible by nano technology we could

build stronger houses tougher cars and

even make ourselves

healthier

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medical researchers are already looking

at using nanop particles to deliver

drugs or to hunt down cancerous

tumors I'm a a brain surgeon it's my job

to treat patients with brain tumors what

we would love is some sort of n

nanoparticle that gets taken up into

these tumors that allows us to identify

where the tumor cells are in the future

nanom medines could Patrol your body

body hunting down diseases and zapping

problems standby for the smallest thing

you've ever

seen this might look like a deep sea

submarine but it's actually a scanning

tunneling

microscope inside it's more empty than

space and it has revolutionized our view

of the Nano world this is an image of a

piece of carbon and these spots are the

single atoms on that piece of carbon so

one spot is one atom so this is the

smallest thing that you can see that's

the smallest thing that you will ever be

able to see with any

microscope if you listen carefully you

can even hear the atoms as the

microscope scans over them

this year researchers imaged the

internal structure of a single molecule

for the first

time this is the most detailed view of

matter that we've ever

had remarkably it looks almost identical

to our

models not only can the microscope take

images it can also move things around we

can actually change the position of

atoms one at a time using this

microscope so we can use the microscope

to choose an atom on a Surface move it

to a new place and then do this with as

many atoms as we want to build up a new

structure and that's where

nanotechnology comes in because

nanotechnology is all about changing the

properties of matter atom by atom by

making new

structures

throughout history we've been making

smaller and smaller

machines now scientists are looking at

ways to create machines at the smallest

scale

possible using atoms as their building

blocks some researchers believe that we

could construct molecular machines that

could make anything we wanted if this

happens it will re solutionize Our

Lives we know that molecular machines

can work because they're in every cell

of our bodies they're working away right

now turning food into energy fixing

damage keeping you warm and making new

cells you are already a masterpiece of

molecular

nanotechnology

Mark Welland is Professor of

nanotechnology at the nanoscience center

of the University of Cambridge imagine a

small implant which you can think of as

being equivalent to your mobile phone

that communicates directly with your

brain as the internet does currently

with the rest of the world if I want to

think a connection with my son who's

walking in the Himalayas I can think the

connection and just as your mobile phone

does it would dial up the device inside

my son and I would talk to him I would

see him I would feel his emotions we

would be infinitely connected to each

other and infinitely connected with all

the information that's around

us if this all sounds more like science

fiction to you think how quickly our

world is already changing someone born

in 1930 would never have believed that

in their lifetime thousands of people

would be flying around around the world

in metal tubes every

day that men could have walked on the

moon and that you would be able to watch

this film on something called the

internet I hope this has given you a

taste of a world that's always been

around but that we are only just

starting to

explore many people think that this

coming age will be the age of Nano if so

you will be the people to explore

explore it and what your generation

discovers will be perhaps the biggest

technological leap in

history it could take you into atoms and

beyond the

stars good

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luck

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n