Nanotech by the Sea

For father’s day my seven year old gave me a great gift, which is the gift to explore within the borders of her creation. That sounds a bit grand for what it was, which was ten pieces of pure white paper, with borders that included two styles of drawings, one of a microscope, and the other of wrapped candy. They were tied in string. She said that I could: 1. Draw abstracts, 2 Write poems, 3. Invent things, by which she mean do patent drawings, like the ones on my office wall. She understood me so well. These three would be hard to choose from, and together they make up elements of me, even to the point by which my own little girl would understand. She left me with an impossible choice, so like in life I will fill those pages with a mixture of her three suggestions.

Today I am in Alvor Portugal for a very academic conference on Nanotechology called the MPA, which like so many European organized conferences happens in one of the most beautiful settings imaginable. I even went to a tire conference in Cannes, France one time, which shows just how committed Europeans are to scenic locations for meetings. This always tests the attendees’ dedication to the topic at hand, as the sea and sangria wait just outside of the conference room walls. Today though the blend of international and interdisciplinary speakers kept me in that windowless room for 8 hours, as talks about everything nanotechnology related were discussed and debated.

Nanotechnology attracts and requires a diversity of expertise not usually present at academic conferences. This is obvious when a physicist (myself for instance) presents a paper, and the chemists and biologists react strongly with other approaches. This can seem confrontational, but for me it is a wonderful relief. So many of my efforts to get people of difference backgrounds talking ends so politely that it becomes clear to me that despite mutual respect no new science will emerge, as the languages spoken are just too different. Here, and in nanotechnology in general, there is a forced tension as none of us will succeed without the other.

This struggle of ideas and focus is not just among departments, countries and companies in nanotechnology, but for us technologists working in this field it can often be like the father’s day present my daughter gave me. It can have defined borders with empty pages that need filling in.  What to choose from to create is infinitely large. Today I spoke about regenerative medicine. Tomorrow I will work on semiconductors. The schizophrenic nature of this requires a different sort of discipline that is more associated with movie making than with science. A filmmaker must master cinematography, editing and acting, while a nanotechnologist must master biology, chemistry and physics. Our goal is to become auteurs of the molecular.

So tonight I will write of the sea and sole in verse, draw fullerenes and nano silver particles interacting in strange abstract forms, and claim an idea for a new material patent on those candy and microscope bordered pages. All the while I will recognize that creating a future of technological progress requires long conferences, the sun and some encouragement from my little girl.