Abstract
Science at the nanoscale involves a change of perspective. It involves the study of objects and phenomena at a very small scale, roughly 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). It is an emerging, interdisciplinary science involving physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, materials science and computer science.
This talk will review some aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology and prospects for bringing advances in materials technology, biotechnology, medicine, information technology and other areas. Activities in Norway in these fields will also be discussed.
The Kavli Prize for Nanoscience will be awarded for the first time here in Norway this fall with $1 million in prize money and with the involvement of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters. Fred Kavli, a Norwegian physicist who made his fortune in the US by supplying industrial sensors, emphasizes the importance of basic research by stating: "Practically everything we touch in our daily lives has been developed or improved through basic research". The other two Kavli prizes will be for astrophysics and neuroscience. The prizes will, according to Kavli, emphasise the science of the greatest physical dimensions of space and time, the science of the smallest dimensions of systems of atoms and molecules, and the science of the most complex systems.