Nanotech, Energy, and Snake Oil

摘要

Nanotech is still a media darling though it predates good old alchemy. Ancient red stained glass cathedral windows used nanogold. And we've been using nano-carbon in tires since the 1920s-and that's okay, but don't sell us old as new. Energy is back on the front burner, like in the 1970s, when we were shocked by the oil embargo energy crisis. And snake oil is that real or imagined cure-all elixir-a term applied to over-promised and under-delivered irems. Do the three have anything in common?