Atomic Legoland: How to build wonder stuff from the atom up
Miracle materials that would supercharge clean energy are on the cards now we can play with individual atoms. We just need to work out how to arrange them
16 August 2017 , updated 23 August 2017
“WHY cannot we write the entire 24 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the head of a pin?” When the fabled physicist Richard Feynman posed the question during a famous speech in December 1959, he was not looking for an easy-to-carry version of the illustrated reference guide. He was drawing attention to the problem of manipulating things on a vanishingly small scale.
As he warmed to his theme, Feynman dared to imagine that we might one day build with the building blocks from which all the known matter in the universe is made. “I am not afraid to consider the final question as to whether, ultimately – in the great future – we can arrange the atoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down!”
