Small Wonder

We at the Blasphemy Blog are officially excited about nanotechnology. It’s absolutely fascinating to us that, right now, scientists are working on building machines that can push around atoms. How incredibly cool is it going to be when nanotechnology starts to work for real? One scientist recently wrote that nanotechnology is going to cure cancer and end our worries about fossil fuel shortages, and these accomplishments are going to seem minor compared to the other things nanotechnology is going to accomplish. This is probably hyperbole, but it’s working on us.

If any of this actually happens, it’s going to seem like magic, like literal alchemy. Humanity has been manufacturing things for a long time, but “things” are made up of molecules, and we don’t alter those. We fold and cut atoms in huge clumps even in the course of such an incredible transformation as turning an oak tree into a cello. At a molecular level, the tree and the cello look exactly alike. But what if we can get little machines to unwrap those carbon rings and make new shapes out of them? Then you could turn an oak tree into new skin for a burn victim, or a Britney Spears record. It’s all just carbon, after all.

By sending tiny machines inside our cells, we’re going to be able to fight cancer without chemo. We’re going to make computers infinitely faster by creating computer chips that are carved with tinier and tinier little memory groovies. And the factories that produce these machines are going to sit on people’s desks.

These things are also going to be dangerous, as everyone who has ever seen a science fiction movie about nanotechnology knows. But, assuming we don’t use these things to annihilate ourselves, it’s going to be exciting to see.

In addition to initiating a new age of technological wonders, nanotechnology is going to make a lot of people rich. Unfortunately, if you want to make money off of it, you’re going to have to move. That’s because the United States, which has been a leading innovator on cutting-edge science issues since, well, 1776, is not out front when it comes to nanotechnology. The government now invests far, far less than Europe or Japan on technological innovation. According to some reports, it’s no longer a question of whether we can catch up, because we can’t. This ship has sailed. No one knows where the breakthrough is going to happen, but it’s going to be in someplace like Seoul or Helsinki, not the south side of Chicago.

The object lesson here comes from history: we must remember that America was rich before it was powerful. We became rich because there was this huge country here with seemingly infinite resources, so we exploited those resources, got rich, and bought ourselves the most powerful military the world has ever seen. But you only have to look at our old adversaries in Moscow to see what happens to powerful armies after a wealthy phase of a nation passes.

I don’t think it’s a foregone tomorrow, but wealthy phases of nations come from innovations and risks. It’s the nature of great empires, like ours, to become conservative and stop taking innovative risks. Then, when the next big thing comes, the empires lose out. That’s what happened to the empire of Haroun al-Rashid. His empire had once gathered the greatest minds of the world together, in the sciences and the arts, too, and they inaugurated a true age of wonders in a rich country that was known the world over as the best place to be on earth. The capital of that empire, of course, was a place called Baghdad.

So you have to wonder: when the histories are written, what American city will they call our Baghdad?