ABSTRACT
Nanotechnology is a class or group of technologies enabled by advances in microscopy and related developments in engineering that allow us to visualize and manipulate matter at this extremely small scale. Envisioning nanotechnology requires considerable imagination. The human eye cannot see materials at the nanoscale. As a result, some degree of controversy has arisen over how nanomaterials or other forms of nanotechnology should be represented, because these cannot ever actually be seen except through the use of advanced microscopy technology. Creative illustrations designed to represent nanotechnology may be viewed by some as distortions that could have an effect on perceptions of nanotechnology’s nature and value, including its usefulness, its harmfulness, its attractiveness, or all of these and more. Nanotechnology, like almost all new technologies, does carry risks, and the novel properties that infuse so much hope into the development of nanotechnology’s various applications also create an unusually novel set of risks that are still learning how to identify and manage.
