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Let's imagine a sculptor
building a statue,

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just chipping away with his chisel.

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Michelangelo had this elegant way
of describing it when he said,

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"Every block of stone
has a statue inside of it,

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and it's the task
of the sculptor to discover it."

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But what if he worked
in the opposite direction?

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Not from a solid block of stone,

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but from a pile of dust,

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somehow gluing millions of these particles
together to form a statue.

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I know that's an absurd notion;

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it's probably impossible.

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The only way you get a statue from a pile
of dust is if the statue built itself --

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if somehow we could compel millions
of these particles to come together

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to form the statue.

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Now, as odd as that sounds,

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that is almost exactly the problem
I work on in my lab.

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I don't build with stone,

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I build with nanomaterials.

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They're these just impossibly small,
fascinating little objects.

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They're so small that if this controller
was a nanoparticle,

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a human hair would be the size
of this entire room.

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And they're at the heart of a field
we call nanotechnology,

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which I'm sure we've all heard about,

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and we've all heard how
it is going to change everything.

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When I was a graduate student,

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it was one of the most exciting
times to be working in nanotechnology.

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There were scientific breakthroughs
happening all the time.

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The conferences were buzzing,

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there was tons of money
pouring in from funding agencies.

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And the reason is

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when objects get really small,

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they're governed by a different set
of physics that govern ordinary objects,

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like the ones we interact with.

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We call this physics quantum mechanics.

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And what it tells you is that you
can precisely tune their behavior

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just by making seemingly
small changes to them,

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like adding or removing
a handful of atoms,

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or twisting the material.

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It's like this ultimate toolkit.

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You really felt empowered;

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you felt like you could make anything.

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And we were doing it --

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and by we I mean my whole
generation of graduate students.

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We were trying to make blazing-fast
computers using nanomaterials.

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We were constructing quantum dots

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that could one day go in your body
and find and fight disease.

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There were even groups
trying to make an elevator to space

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using carbon nanotubes.

49
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You can look that up,

50
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that's true.

51
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Anyways, we thought it was
going to effect all parts

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of science and technology,

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from computing to medicine.

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And I have to admit,

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I drank all of the Kool-Aid.

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I mean, every last drop.

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But that was 15 years ago,

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and --

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fantastic science was done,

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really important work.

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We've learned a lot.

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We were never able to translate
that science into new technologies --

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into technologies that could
actually impact people.

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And the reason is,

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these nanomaterials --

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they're like a double-edged sword.

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The same thing that makes 
them so interesting --

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they're small size --

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also makes them impossible to work with.

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It's literally like trying to build
a statue out of a pile of dust.

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And we just don't have the tools
that are small enough to work with them.

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But even if we did,

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it wouldn't really matter,

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because we couldn't one by one
place millions of particles together

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to build a techonology.

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So because of that,

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all of the promise

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and all of the excitement

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has remained just that:

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promise and excitement.

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We don't have any
disease-fighting nanobots,

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there's no elevators to space,

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and the thing that I'm most interested in,

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no new types of computing.

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Now that last one,

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that's a really important one.

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We just have come to expect

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the pace of computing advancements
to go on indefinitely.

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We've built entire economies on this idea.

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And this pace exists
because of our ability

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to pack more and more devices
onto a computer chip.

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And as those devices get smaller,

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they get faster,

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they consume less power

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and they get cheaper.

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And it's this convergence that gives us
this incredible pace.

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As an example:

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if I took the room-sized computer
that sent three men to the moon and back

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and somehow compressed it --

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compressed the world's
greatest computer of its day --

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so it was the same size
as your smartphone --

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your actual smartphone,

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that thing you spent 300 bucks on
and just toss out every two years --

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would blow this thing away.

105
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You would not be impressed.

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It couldn't do anything
that your smartphone does.

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It would be slow,

108
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you couldn't put any of your stuff on it,

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you could possibly get through
the first two minutes

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of a "Walking Dead" episode
if you're lucky --

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(Laughter)

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The point is the progress --

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it's not gradual.

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The progress is relentless;

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it's exponential;

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it compounds on itself
year after year,

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to the point where
if you compare a technology

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from one generation to the next,

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they're almost unrecognizable.

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And we owe it to ourselves
to keep this progress going.

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We want to say the same thing
10, 20, 30 years from now:

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look what we've done
over the last 30 years.

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Yet, we know this progress
may not last forever.

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In fact, the party's kind of winding down.

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It's like "last call for alcohol," right?

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If you look under the covers,

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by many metrics like
speed and performance,

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the progress has already slowed to a halt.

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So if we want to keep this party going,

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we have to do what we've
always been able to do,

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and that is to innovate.

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So our group's role

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and our group's mission

134
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is to innovate by employing
carbon nanotubes,

135
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because we think that they can
provide a path to continue this pace.

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They are just like they sound.

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They're tiny, hollow tubes
of carbon atoms,

138
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and their nanoscale size --

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that small size --

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gives rise to these just outstanding
electronic properties.

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The science tells us if we could
employ them in computing,

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we could see up to ten times
improvement in performance.

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It's like skipping through several
technology generations in just one step.

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So, there we have it.

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We have this really important problem,

146
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and we have what is basically
the ideal solution.

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The science is screaming at us,

148
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"This is what you should be doing
to solve your problem."

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So, all right, let's get started,

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let's do this.

151
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But you just run right back
into that double-edged sword.

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This "ideal solution" contains a material
that's impossible to work with.

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I'd have to arrange billions of them
just to make one single computer chip.

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It's that same conundrum,

155
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it's like this undying problem.

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At this point,

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we said, "Let's just stop.

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Let's not go down that same road.

159
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Let's just figure out what's missing.

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What are we not dealing with?

161
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What are not doing that needs to be done?"

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It's like in "The Godfather," right?

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When Fredo betrays his brother Michael,

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we all know what needs to be done.

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Fredo's got to go.

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(Laughter)

167
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But Michael --

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he puts it off.

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Fine, I get it.

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Their mother's still alive,

171
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it would make her upset.

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(Laughter)

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We just said,

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"What's the Fredo in our problem?"

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What are we not dealing with?

176
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What are we not doing,

177
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but needs to be done
to make this a success?"

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And the answer is that the statue
has to build itself.

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We have to find a way,

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somehow,

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to compel,

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to convince billions of these particles

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to assemble themselves
into the technology.

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We can't do it for them.

185
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They have to do it for themselves.

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And it's the hard way,

187
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and this is not trivial,

188
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but in this case,

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it's the only way.

190
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As it turns out,

191
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this is not that alien of a problem.

192
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We just don't build anything this way.

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People don't build anything this way.

194
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But if you look around --

195
00:07:04,930 --> 00:07:06,847
and there's examples everywhere --

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mother nature builds everything this way.

197
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Everything is built from the bottom up.

198
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You can go to the beach,

199
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you'll find these simple organisms
that use proteins --

200
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basically molecules --

201
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to template what is essentially sand,

202
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just plucking it from the sea

203
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and building these extraordinary
architectures with extreme diversity.

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And nature's not crude like us,

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just hacking away.

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She's elegant and smart,

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building with what's available,

208
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molecule by molecule,

209
00:07:32,329 --> 00:07:34,517
making structures with a complexity

210
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and a diversity that we
can't even approach.

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She's already at the nano.

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She's been there for hundreds
of millions of years.

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We're the ones that are late to the party.

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So, we decided that we're going
to use the same tool that nature uses,

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and that's chemistry.

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Chemistry is the missing tool.

217
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And chemistry works in this case

218
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because these nanoscale objects
are about the same size as molecules,

219
00:07:57,749 --> 00:08:00,391
so we can use them to steer
these objects around,

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much like a tool.

221
00:08:01,940 --> 00:08:03,949
That's exactly what we've done in our lab.

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We've developed chemistry
that goes into the pile of dust,

223
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into the pile of nanoparticles,

224
00:08:08,775 --> 00:08:11,148
and pulls out exactly the ones we need.

225
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Then, we can use chemistry to arrange
literally billions of these particles

226
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into the pattern we need
to build circuits.

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And because we can do that,

228
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we can build circuits
that are many times faster

229
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than what anyone's been able
to make using nanomaterials before.

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Chemistry's the missing tool,

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00:08:26,099 --> 00:08:29,708
and every day our tool gets sharper
and gets more precise.

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And eventually --

233
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and we hope this is within
a handful of years --

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we can deliver on one
of those original promises.

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Now, computing is just one example.

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It's the one that I'm interested in,

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that my group is really invested in,

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but there are others in renewable energy,

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in medicine,

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in structural materials,

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where the science is going to tell you
to move towards the nano.

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That's where the biggest benefit is.

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But if we're going to do that,

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00:08:55,431 --> 00:08:58,649
the scientists of today and tomorrow
are going to need new tools --

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tools just like the ones I described.

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00:09:02,780 --> 00:09:04,886
And they will need chemistry.

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The beauty of science is that once
you develop these new tools,

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00:09:08,616 --> 00:09:09,625
they're out there.

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They're out there forever,

250
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and anyone anywhere can pick
them up and use them,

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and help to deliver on the promise
of nanotechnology.

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Thank you so much for your time.

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I appreciate it.

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(Applause)