Flying Cars

, 20 minutes

Nano is the scientific term meaning one-billionth (1/1,000,000,000). It comes from a Greek word meaning “dwarf.”

A nanometer is one one-billionth of a meter. One inch equals 25.4 million nanometers. A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. A human hair measures roughly 50,000 to 100,000 nanometers across. Your fingernails grow one nanometer every second.
(Other units can also be divided by one billion. A single blink of an eye is about one-billionth of a decade. An eyeblink is to a year what a nanometer is to a yardstick.)

Nanoscale refers to measurements of 1 – 100 nanometers.  A virus is about 70 nm long. A cell membrane is about 9 nm thick. Ten hydrogen atoms are about 1 nm.
At the nanoscale, many common materials exhibit unusual properties, such as remarkably lower resistance to electricity, or faster chemical reactions.

Nanotechnology is the manipulation of material at the nanoscale to take advantage of these properties. This often means working with individual molecules.

Nanoscience, nanoengineering and other such terms refer to those activities applied to the nanoscale. “Nano,” by itself, is often used as short-hand to refer to any or all of these activities.

[Introduction]

Greetings! I am from the FUTURE! I come from a time when everyone drives flying cars, and we eat entire meals in pill form, and everyone dresses like this! It’s hard to imagine that life in the Future will be like that, but imagining the future is quite difficult. I’d like to take you on a journey through time, looking at predictions other people have made. About the Future.

First we’re going back to the year 1900. [Sound effect. Change costume to 1900. Start talking in old-timey voice.]

Hello, I’m from the year 1900. In the year 1900, we wrote lots of newspaper stories about what we think life in the year 2000 will be like. I have here several lists of things they predicted. In each list, all but one of these things is something they actually predicted, and one I made up. Which of these do you think they did NOT predict in the year 1900?

[Show Slide 3. As people make incorrect guesses, explain that you’re reading from the newspaper articles, then read the relevant predictions. After 2 guesses, show the right answer on slide 4. Repeat through slide 10. ]

[Slide 11]
This is what their idea of a Segway looked like. And now we’re moving forward in time again, to the year 1945! [Change hats.]

[Slide 12]
[Talk in “swell” cheesy 1950s voice.] Hello there! I’m from the year 1945. This man, Vannevar Bush is the President’s science advisor, and he’s thought about inventions. We’ve invented a lot in the 20th century, and he’s imagining what might be invented by the year 2000. He’s made some predictions. Which of these does he NOT predict?

[Continue as before, listing items, and reading phrases that describe actual predictions.]

[Slide 19]
As you saw, Mr. Bush did not predict computer chips. He thought all these amazing inventions would be built using vacuum tubes and paper, with computers the size of buildings that had less power than your cell phone!

But now it’s time to moving forward again, to the year 1999!

[Slide 20]
[Change costumes.]
Hi, I’m from 1999. We’re all worried about Y2K. A man named Ray Kurzweil, who in 1980 predicted the internet, which is a big deal in 1999, thought about what life in the distant future would be like in the year 2009. He made many predictions. Which of these did he not predict?

[Repeat for slides 21-24]

[Slide 25]
Which of these future science fiction inventions does NOT already exist?

[Slide 27]
Nanotechnology is the technology of the Future, using tiny nanoparticles to change the properties of different materials to create new substances that act in new ways. Which one of these nanotechnology products does not already exist?

[Slide 29]
All of these products use tiny nanoparticles of silver, embedded in the material, to kill germs and make them antibacterial. Which one does NOT already exist? Antibacterial curling iron, doorknob, Tupperware, shoelaces, teddy bear or toothpaste?
[I often say that the toothpaste is gross and I wouldn’t use it. Also, the curling iron is unnecessary, because it gets hot enough to kill germs.]

[Slide 31]
Now, looking ahead in to the FUTURE, people like Ray Kurzweil are imagining life 50 years from now and making even more predictions. Which one of these are they NOT predicting for 50 years from now?

[Slide 33]
Which one of these are they NOT predicting? Time travel? Computers plugged into your brain – like in the Matrix? Paint that when it dries turns into a TV? Or replacing teachers with computers?

So. Predicting the future is really hard. A lot of those predictions we’re making now are crazy. But a lot of the past predictions were crazy – but a lot of them came true. So even though we’re predicting a lot of crazy stuff… some of it might come true.

[Slide 35]
But that’s what people like Ray Kurzweil and his friends think will happen. Which of these things that they’re predicting do YOU think will happen in the next 50 years?
[Poll the audience about each item. Ask them if they think each of these will happen: Cure for Cancer, Space Elevator, Household Fusion power, the Matrix, Time Travel, replacing teachers with computers, and TV paint.]
Ray Kurzweil is really confident that the Matrix will happen. I don’t think we’ll ever replace teachers with computers. They’ve been predicting that for decades, and it hasn’t happened yet.

[Slide 36]
Here’s how previous audiences have voted.

[Get out poster with post-it notes of predictions, with sign asking “What else do YOU think will be invented in 50 years?”]
Besides these predictions, what else do YOU think people will invent in the future? You can write something down and add it to this list!

Put all materials away.

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To give an inclusive presentation of this program