Nano is a Big Deal

The Singh Center for Nanotechnology is now open.  There's a free tour today and tomorrow but I'll likely be too busy to partake.  Luckily, Penn's alumni magazine did a nice feature on it this month.  It's very cool how nicely designed the place is, and since the place is barely a mile from my house, I'm sure I'll find the time to check it out in person someday soon. 

Nanotech, if you don't know, is the study of things at the very, very small scale.  Apparently, when you get down to the individual atom level, you see some strange and potentially quite useful things. Befitting Penn, nanotech has been a cross-disciplinary effort, and is in fact the first building jointly undertaken by two schools within Penn. 

Having a nanotech center thus lends itself to all sorts of collaborations across disciplines and schools.  And, since you need some really expensive equipment to measure, monitor, and safeguard your research, there aren't exactly a whole lot of these places in the world.  Which means that, once again, the world will be beating a path to Philadelphia and the Penn campus.  Which of course is good for our economy and our reputation.

Who knew that something so small could be such a big deal?