Nanoscience

Nanotechnology in the firing line

Nanotechnology in the firing line: a talk delivered at the International Conference on Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing held at The Royal Society, London, on 15-16 December 2003.

Nanoethics

Nanoethics: a talk delivered at the Royal Society for the Arts, London, March 2003. Download PDF

NANOETHICS AND THE PURPOSE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES
Philip Ball
Talk delivered at ‘Materials Choices’ symposium
Royal Society for Arts, London, March 2003

I apologize for the banality of the question with which I want to begin, but I do hope to convince you that asking it is not simply a matter of solipsistic navel-gazing.

The question is this: What is science?

I’d venture to suggest that many working scientists will give an answer somewhat along the following lines, which I found in a book about scientific ethics:

    Science pursues the truth of general physical law, attempting to uncover underlying principles that govern the natural world.

That is to say, science is about understanding how the world works. …

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Nanotechnology in fact and fiction: (different talk!)

Nanotechnology in fact and fiction: a (different!) talk for sixth-formers delivered at the University of Oxford, March 2003. Download PDF or Word Doc.+ Powerpoint (ZIP file 1.35Mb)

NANOTECHNOLOGY IN FACT AND FICTION – Philip Ball
Lecture delivered at Oxford University, March 2003
There is a Powerpoint presentation to accompany this talk.

What is the scariest thing? I suspect that all writers of horror and thrillers will agree on this: the thing that scares us most is the thing we cannot see. It is, let’s be frank, a grim time to be reminded of the terrors of the invisible foe, but there is nothing new in that. Some historians argue that the Black Death in the 14th century drove all of Europe to a state of collective madness, creating an obsession with death and with the invisible demons that were believed to torment humankind. The plague was blamed on poisonous airs, pestilential vapours, and on the agency of devils and witches.

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Nanotechnology in fact and fiction

Nanotechnology in fact and fiction: a talk delivered for the Founders’ Day address, Union College, NY, February 2003. Download PDF

NANOTECHNOLOGY IN FACT AND FICTION – Philip Ball
Founders Day address at Union College 27 February 2003

What is the scariest thing? I suspect that all writers of horror and thrillers will agree on this: the thing that scares us most is the thing we cannot see. It is, let’s be frank, a grim time to be reminded of the terrors of the invisible foe, but there is nothing new in that. Some historians argue that the Black Death in the 14th century drove all of Europe to a state of collective madness, creating an obsession with death and with the invisible demons that were believed to torment humankind. The plague was blamed on poisonous airs, pestilential vapours, and on the agency of devils and witches.

The novelist Michael Crichton has tapped into these fears of the unseen. In Jurassic Park, Crichton gave us monsters that were all too monstrously tangible. But in his latest book Prey, which dominated the bestseller lists over this Christmas, the danger is invisible. It comes from robots, each the size of a bacterium, which swarm in the air like particles of dust and are capable of reducing anything to a featureless sludge. In Prey, the enemy is nanotechnology. …

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