Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Introduction
BACKGROUND
The prediction of the progress of technology over long periods is an uncer-
tain exercise. The temptations are to be either too conservative, acknowledging
the current limitations of technology and not foreseeing the breakthroughs in
conception and capability that will inevitably occur, or too exuberant, brushing
aside real physical limitations in an excess of futuristic zeal. Such a challenge
particularly applies to nanotechnology, which is an exciting and relatively unex-
plored scientific and technological frontier offering many new insights and appli-
cations but at the same time evoking much speculation and hyperbole. To cite
Shermer in one of the many recent journal overviews of nanotechnology, “The
rub in exploring the borderlands is finding that balance between being open-
minded enough to accept radical new ideas but not so open-minded that your
brains fall out.”
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From an applications perspective, the combination of micro-
technologies and nanotechnologies offers a particularly powerful combination
for future Air Force missions and deserves careful consideration.
Two particularly pervasive themes of microtechnology, now extending into
nanotechnology, have been miniaturization of electronic systems and the result-
ing increase in information density. The miniaturization trends of the last 50
years will undoubtedly continue and even accelerate over the next 50 years. In
1950, we had five-transistor radios, and computers were vacuum-tube-filled
rooms with a very limited mean time between failure, available only to govern-
ments and large corporations. Today we have inexpensive, 100-million-transistor
computer chips in our homes, which we replace not because they have failed, but
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