2 CHAPTER 1 What is Nanotechnology? humanity. This is particularly likely to be the case for large artifacts (such as human dwellings or airplanes) and for relatively complex products such as food, which can be quite easily grown naturally. In this chapter we shall first look at the basic definitions for nanotechnology, and sketch a concept system ("ontology") for the field. It is also possible to define nanotechnology ostensively, according to what is already generally considered to be nanotechnology, and extended by what is envisaged in the future. A further way of defining it is through its history. We also briefly look at the relation of nanotechnology to biology, which has been a powerful paradigm for convincing engineers that nano- technology is possible--nanobiotechnology and bionanotechnology form the topics of subsequent chapters (4 and 11 respectively). General motivations for nanotechnol- ogy are considered--"Why nanotechnology?" Attention is drawn to the appended list of neologisms associated with nanotechnology (Appendix, p. 00). 1.1 DEFINITIONS AND CONCEPTS 1.1.1 Working Definitions The simplest definition of nanotechnology is "technology at the nanoscale". The vari- ous definitions currently circulating can be reasonably accurately thus paraphrased. Obviously, this definition is not intelligible in the absence of a further definition, namely that of the nanoscale. Furthermore, definitions of components of nanotechnol- ogy, such as "nanofiber", also refer to the nanoscale; indeed every word starting with "nano", which we can generically write as "nanoX", can be defined as "nanoscale X". Therefore, unless we define "nanoscale", we cannot therefore properly define nanotechnology. A rational attempt to do so is made in Chapter 2. Here we note that provisionally, the nanoscale is considered to cover the range from 1 to 100 nm. Essentially this is a consensus without a strong rational foundation. A slightly longer but still succinct definition of nanotechnology is simply "engi- neering with atomic precision", or "atomically precise technology" (APT). However, this definition does not explicitly include the aspects of "fundamentally new proper- ties" or "novel" and "unique" that nanotechnologists usually insist upon, wishing to exclude existing artifacts that happen to be small. These aspects are encapsulated by the US National Nanotechnology Initiative's declaration that "the essence of nano- technology is the ability to work at the molecular level, atom-by-atom, to create large structures with fundamentally new molecular organization . . . nanotechnology is con- cerned with materials and systems whose structures and components exhibit novel and significantly improved physical, chemical, and biological properties, phenomena, and processes due to their nanoscale size" [123]. The US Foresight Institute gives "nanotechnology is a group of emerging tech- nologies in which the structure of matter is controlled at the nanometer scale to produce novel materials and devices that have useful and unique properties".