Nanotechnology is not difficult to understand. Though the science is complex, the basic principles are not. Newcomers often have more trouble wrapping their minds around the concept than grasping the details. The coming age of nanotechnology might best be described as the age of digital matter, for it will be a time in which it becomes possible to manipulate the physical world in much the same way that a computer now manipulates the digital ones and zeroes on its hard drive.

Cell phones are miniaturized versions of traditional landline phones. Wristwatches are miniature versions of clocks. Desktop computers are miniature versions of the original analog calculating machines. Miniaturization is common place in today's world. In tomorrow's world, nano-tech will be the new common technology. It will affect everyone on the planet, and may change civilization. Nanotechnologys involvement with the materials and systems of nanoscale size whose structures and components exhibit novel and significantly improved physical, chemical and biological properties, phenomena and processes. Structural features in the range of about 10-⁹ to 10-⁷ m (1 to 100 nm) determine important changes as compared to the behavior of isolated molecules (1 nm) or of bulk materials. New behavior at the nanoscale can not be easily predictable from that observed at large size scales. Important changes in behavior are due to new phenomenon such as size confinement, predominance of interfacial phenomena, quantum mechanics and coulomb blockade and also by magnitude size reduction. It is notable that all relevant phenomena at nanoscale are caused by the tiny size of the organized structure as compared to molecular scale, and by the interactions at their predominant and complex interfaces. As we will be able to control feature size, we can enhance material properties and device functions beyond those that we currently know or even imagine.

In future we can think of getting an injection of "smart" molecules that can seek out cancer cells and destroy them without harming any of the surrounding tissue. A simultaneous space launch via the shuttle of thousands of robotic probes, each no bigger than an insect, and each programmed to do a single task in concert with all of the others can be thought of in future. Nanotechnology will provide the capacity to create affordable products with dramatically improved performance. This will come through a basic understanding of ways to control and manipulate matter at the nanometer scale and through the incorporation of nanostructures and nanoprocesses into technological innovations. It will be a center of intense international competition when it lives up to its promise as a generator of technology.

Commercial inroads in the hard disk, coating, photographic, and pharmaceutical industries have already shown how new scientific breakthroughs at this scale can change production paradigms and revolutionize multibillion-dollar businesses.

The science of atoms and simple molecules, on one end, and the science of matter from microstructures to larger scales, on the other, are generally established. The remaining size-related challenge is at the nanoscale where the fundamental properties of materials are determined and can be engineered. A revolution has been occurring in science and technology, based on the recently developed ability to measure, manipulate and organize matter on this scale.