"I sit before you today with very little hair on my head. It fell out a few weeks ago as a result of the chemotherapy I've been undergoing. Twenty years ago, without even this crude chemotherapy, I would already be dead. But 20 years from now, nanoscale missiles will target cancer cells in the human body and leave everything else blissfully alone. I may not live to see it. But I am confident it will happen." Richard Smalley spoke these words on June 22, 1999. He died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on October 28, 2005. The 62-year-old Nobel Prize-winning chemist was a nanotech pioneer.
A tsunami is unnoticeable in the open ocean—a long, low wave whose power becomes clear only when it reaches shore and breaks. Technological revolutions travel with the same stealth. Spotting the wave while it's still crossing the ocean is tricky, which explains why so few of us are aware of the one that's approaching. Nanotechnology has been around for two decades, but the first wave of applications is only now beginning to break. As it does, it will make the computer revolution look like small change. It will affect everything from the batteries we use to the pants we wear to the way we treat cancer.
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