“Man is the measure of all things”- Protagoras In this panel we try to get things into perspective. We start with the human body around 1.5-2.0 metres or so in height and we work our way down to carbon nanotubes with a spacing between the atoms of less than a nanometre (one thousand millionth of a metre – 10-9m). We have arranged the various items in descending order and it’s the order that gives the perspective. An interesting break point is at 1 micron (one millionth of a meter – 10-6m) Around about this point is as small as we can see using visible light in a microscope – it’s determined by the wavelength of visible light which ranges from 450-750 nanometers. Below 1 micron in size we have to use a different tool set such as the Scanning Electron Microscope, Transmission Electron Microscope, Molecular Beam Epitaxy and Electron Beam Lithography to see and make things – we are then in the dimensions that require nanotechnology. Below about 1 nanometre in size we are into a size region that’s equivalent to distance between the atoms in most of the common solids - manipulating matter below this scale takes us out of nanotechnology into other areas such as nuclear physics. But nanotechnology has plenty of interesting things to do in the size range 10-6 - 10-9m “I never saw an ugly thing in my life …– for perspective will always make it beautiful” John Constable Data & SEMs: Department of Electrical Engineering, Glasgow University. © 2007 M. Robertson/Nanovisions

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