Where is the world going? – Ask nanotechnology
Published on 20 May 2013
Updated on 05 April 2024
Updated on 05 April 2024
An 18-year-old science student has made an astonishing breakthrough that will enable mobile phones and other batteries to be charged within seconds rather than the hours it takes today’s devices to power back up.
Saratoga, Calif. resident Eesha Khare made the breakthrough by creating a small supercapacitor that can fit inside a cell phone battery and enable ultra-fast electricity transfer and storage, delivering a full charge in 20-30 seconds instead of several hours.
The nano-tech device Khare created can supposedly withstand up to 100,000 charges, a 100-fold increase over current technology, and it’s flexible enough to be used in clothing or displays on any non-flat surface.
Comment: nanotechnology is cropping up in the strangest places as a solution to the inefficiency of “big” or “raw” power. Nanotechnology is smart. Nanotechnology is young, very young, and we don’t know where it will lead us. Nanotechnology is already is the hands of inventive 18-year olds – and (even) women!
this is a smiling hint to all the prophets of doom, who think we are on the brink in the next blink or two. Who knows?
THERE WILL BE A FUTURE
There will be rain, there will be feasts, there
will be bonfires, chestnut husks will crack,
there will be shouts, someone will hide in the bushes,
someone will trip over a cherrystone,
a smell of gas and lilacs in the air.
There will be laughter, there will be cries, prayers, demure
and silent lies, there will be a future,
only you will stay here, in the second-
class waiting room of the railroad station, dark with
cigar smoke, under the portrait of the Austrian Emperor.
Adam ZAGAJEVSKI
(NB: I just opened the book, and this poem came tumbling out…)
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‘Nanotechnology is already is
‘Nanotechnology is already is the hands of inventive 18-year olds – and (even) women!’
Well, that certainly woke me out of my matronly stupor this morning ,Aldo. The name Hedy Lamarr comes to mind. Do you know of her? She was an Austrian actress – gorgeous, talented, and icon in her day.She was also a pioneer in the area of wireless communication and along with some chap by the name of George Anthiel, developed a system whereby they manipulated radio frequencies at regular intervals in between transmission and reception thus forming a code that could not be broken and preventing the Nazis from intercepting allied messages. The pair patented their invention in 1941 but alas (though I’m sure it had nothing to do with her gender) the significance of what Hedy had accomplished took a while to sink in but the ‘spread spectrum technology’ that she helped invent became the foundation of what is now used for mobile phones, and other wireless stuff.
Mind-boggling don’t you think? One can only wonder what a woman (even an 18-year-old one) will manage to do with nanotechnology…