Size is important!
To work out why the nano-world might be different to the one we are familiar with, we just need to think about the things that change as we go down in scale from our 'big world':
What changes as things get smaller?
- The mass of the object gets smaller: We are familiar with big world physics, but small, light objects get bashed about by forces we don't notice.
- The ratio between surface area and volume of the object gets larger: This causes stuff that works in the big world - like the internal combustion engine - to break down at the micro scale...
- The absolute number of atoms or molecules in the object gets smaller, so an individual molecule can dominate behaviour of a nano-device (many nano-devices in our cells are single protein molecules!).
Return to: A journey to the nano-world.
