Small and Many is Different – Nanotechnology as a New Territory

What does the world look like down there? What are the laws of nature and what they dictate? Why small is important and should it be possible to miniaturize further? Why many is different, and when many becomes enough? Does our ability to produce numerous copies of miniature building blocks opens the way to a new type of engineering based on self-organization, replication, and evolution; principles that characterize biological systems more than man-made systems? What options are opened up by the integration of man-made technology into living systems? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in an attempt to illuminate the conceptual aspects of a new field whose impact on our lives is growing rapidly.