There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom is the title of a 1959 lecture and essay by Richard Feynman, exploring the possibilities of synthetic chemistry's extension into atomic-scale machinery. Collected in books such as 1961's Miniaturization and republished in popular magazines, it is considered pivotal in the early definition and popularization of nanotechnology.

Topics and development

Nanoscale manipulators, Waldo by Robert Heinlein

Albert Hibbs and nanomedicine

Challenges

In the initial lecture to the American Physical Society at Caltech, Feynman issued two challenges, with a $1,000 prize each:

Miniaturized motor

William McLellan, 1960

Miniaturized text

Tom Newman, 1985

External Links

• There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom (PDF)
• Richard Feynman "Tiny Machines" Nanotechnology Lecture - aka "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" on Youtube
• There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom on Wikipedia