In case you missed it, Elon Musk recently called BS on the field of nanotechnology. The ensuing Twitter spat was admittedly rather small on the grand scale of things, but it did throw up an important question: Just what is nanotech, and where does the BS end and the science begin?

I suspect that Musk was trolling with his initial nano-comment. After all, much of the tech in his cars, solar cells, and rockets relies on nanoscale science and engineering. But having worked in nanoscale science for nearly 30 years, I must confess that my BS monitor also gets a little twitchy sometimes around talk of nanotechnology.

The ‘next industrial revolution’

Mainstream nanotechnology came of age about 20 years ago, as the United States government began cross-agency efforts to invest in what it initially tagged as “the next industrial revolution.”

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