Product Description
The new science and technology of the incredibly small-and what it means for our future. Our lives are about to be changed by new technologies that operate on a scale too small to be seen by even the most powerful optical microscopes. Devices measured in nanometers-billionths of a meter-have set off a nanotechnology revolution. In Travels to the Nanoworld, Michael Gross takes us deep into this miniature universe and describes natural processes and new technologies … More >>
Travels to the Nanoworld: Miniature Machinery in Nature and Technology
Tags: michael gross, miniature universe, nanotechnology revolution, nanoworld, natural processes, new science, optical microscopes, science and technology, technology product, travels
#1 by Anonymous on July 4, 2010 - 12:30 pm
This book gives an overview of the exciting world of invisibly small things, be they natural or technological. Nature is shown to be the best engineer on the nanoscale, but human engineers are beginning to learn the lesson. While some of the contents are scientifically explicit, there are goodies for curious readers on all levels of understanding.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Worldreels on July 4, 2010 - 1:48 pm
The crux of the problem is that Gross can’t take us on a tour of the picoworld, the femtoworld or the attoworld where the real mechanics of the nanoworld must lie hidden. Depending on the reader’s background this book could range from being a big bore to being quite interesting. Most of his speculation about nanotechnology is borrowed from Drexler. If you’ve read Drexler there is no point in rereading it here. However briefly, he does warn that this fiddling in the nanoworld could result in ultimate bacterial weapons and freaky humans. Boiling down the message-much of Gross’ nanoworld tour consists of illustrating activity within cells and bacteria. He is like a man looking at a bird in flight and saying, “Look, man can fly too.” When he goes off on tangents like the blue rose, the green genes and pressure squeezed eggs the reader realizes he is grasping at straws.
Much of the book explains how x-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, and laser pulse photography are used to magnify and stop the action occurring within the animal cell. In this way he reduces life, the cellular processes, to those like message transmission, transport, protein folding, and protein synthesis /catalysis. He speaks of the new fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering to change the DNA blueprint but that is what evolution has been doing for billions of years. What’s new here beyond splicing into the bacteria’s DNA to create drugs like insulin or frost proof vegetables?
Rating: 3 / 5
#3 by Eric Bauswell on July 4, 2010 - 4:45 pm
This book was a relatively quick read. It covers most of the basics without burying the novice (like myself) in the wealth of details in some of the more advanced books on the subject.
Nanosystems and Engines of Creation are two great books for more on nanotechnology by Eric Drexler.
Take a look at [...]
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by Anonymous on July 4, 2010 - 5:49 pm
Not exactly dealing with “nanotechnology”. You can imagine the contents judging from the title, “nanoworld”. Overemphasizes biological systems and gives some examples that are not related to nanotech. You will get a broad, “shallow” understanding of what has been done and is going on in a science field called chemistry.
Rating: 2 / 5
#5 by tommy_tads on July 4, 2010 - 6:51 pm
Gross by name, but, thankfully, not by nature. This is an excellent introduction to miniature machinery, in the realms of both nature and technology. An ideal accompaniment to Ken Dodd’s “Voyages to Knotty Ash: Diddymen and their clown cars”
Rating: 5 / 5