“Nanotechnology will most likely be used in 3 distinct areas in the future: energy, communications and medicine” suggested Professor Richard Jones at BioCity’s 3rd Annual Lecture on 12th October.
Speaking to an audience of academics, business people and students from local colleges, Professor Jones explained what nanotechnology is; what it isn’t; and what it could be.
“Nanotechnology works at the scale of one millionth of a millimeter and is being heralded as the new technological revolution.
Technological optimists look forward to a nanotech world where energy will be clean and abundant, the environment will have been repaired to a pristine state and any kind of material artifact can be made for almost no cost. Space travel will be cheap and easy, disease will be a thing of the past and we can all expect to live for a thousand years.
On the other hand, technological pessimists envisage self replicating “nanobots” whether unleashed by a malicious act, or developing out-of-control from the experiments of naïve scientists, taking over the world, reducing the biosphere to “grey goo” and rendering life forms such as ourselves extinct.”
The pioneering specialist based his captivating lecture on the truth that lies somewhere between both these extremes as nanotechnology will of course be influenced by other scientific developments, social reactions, and local and global politics. Professor Jones reasoned that the future of Nanoscience lies in biology; in the nanoscale machines that are already working incredibly efficiently inside our own cells. He proposes we learn from what nature has already perfected and not simply try to miniaturise our current, relatively clumsy and inefficient engineering.
The audience left with a clearer view of how this fascinating technology could affect our lives in future.
Professor Jones was educated at Cambridge University, with a first degree and a PhD in physics. After postdoctoral work at Cornell University, he was appointed as a lecturer at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University.
In 1998 he moved to Sheffield University, where he is a Professor of Physics. He lives in Derbyshire and is married with two young children.