Nano : The Emerging Science of Nanotechnology

Ed Regis is careful here to present the actual state of the field, and also to give some interesting insights into the curiously cultlike following that has grown up around Eric Drexler.

I recommend this book as a dispassionate assessment of what really COULD be one of the biggest technological revolutions since... oh, I don't know... the wheel comes to mind. Or fire. Or the printed word. My only problem with this book is that it's slightly behind the times nowadays. Nanotechnology is even less science fiction today, in 2001, than it was when this book came out. People should understand, while reading this, that IBM, Hewlett Packard, and other corporate behemoths are spending tens of millions of dollars RIGHT NOW to develop nanotechnology. Some of America's top business schools have Nanotechnology Clubs to monitor potentially lucrative developments in this field -- I'm thinking specifically of Wharton, which I know for a fact has such a club, and I've been told that Stanford and Harvard do as well.

I don't think it's possible to be too highly aware of this field of study. I recommend buying this book, and talking about it with family and friends. Pass it around, encourage your friends to pick up a copy for themselves. If you are in school, or have children in school, ask your science teacher to try to do a unit on it. Heck, why not form a club. Try anything, it doesn't matter what you do specifically, just try to become informed. Also -- it is easy to find newsgroups and listservs online about nanotechnology. Just go to any search engine and type in "nanotechnology" and "listserv," and you'll find a source of valuable information for yourself.

This book is very worth owning. Two thumbs up.


Entertaining look at a fascinating subject   July 13, 1998
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

A highly entertaining look at the emerging science of nanotechnology and its leading visionary, K. Eric Drexler. The subject matter is fascinating, and Regis tells the story with his usual wit and humor. Well worth reading as a quick primer on the subject; not intended to be a dry technical text on the subject. Much in the spirit of Regis's Great Mambo Chicken; I think this one is actually a better book, but one should probably read Great Mambo Chicken first as an introduction to Regis's work.


A must to who ever intrested in Nanotechnology   June 16, 2000
Dan Kotliar (Israel)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

The Book is very interesting. it gives a full overview of Nano's past, present anf future. The subject it self is fascinating; it's like reading a science fiction novel' only it's our future.


A bullet-train "read" into the future   December 20, 1997
saffordel@aol.com (Texas, USA)
You don't have to believe this is the future, but what a read! The first paragraph sucks your breathe out, and you won't remember breathing again after that. For too few hours, you will be engaged in the heroic journey of a small number of men and women who are trying to change our world one atom at a time.

Read this book and you will feel like Alice after she got back from the rabbit hole, or Newton after he got whacked with an apple. Your eyes opening onto new worlds, new possibilities, you will be driven with that insatiable desire to create. Like Regis' book "Who Got Einstein's Office", this is popular science writing at its best!


A well-researched book of restrained advocacy   March 23, 1997
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

"Nano" charts the lives and work to date of the nanotechnology field's creators. It's a terrific piece of hardcover journalism, and although it focuses on people rather than science, it ends up being a better introduction to the science than K Eric Drexler's two populist works. It's scientifically accurate, cleanly researched (Regis even counted the equations in a technical text) and gives space to detractors as well as advocates. Secondhand sources are followed up and verified. Regis is evidently a believer in this emerging science, but a particularly even-handed one. I read this book as an afterthought long after I'd digested the field's technical literature, and still enjoyed it hugely. Recommended