Nanoscale Computation and Sims

Via KQED YouTube Channel, a 10:28 min clip posted May 2007 featuring Jeffrey Grossman from UC Berkeley, informing on the world of the nanometer unit of measure that is, one billionth of a meter. Dr. Grossman is interested in "How we do science and how we can do it better", and on the need to "lower the boundaries between basic and applied research" and "improve interdisciplinary idea generation."

One of the best analogies for a nanometer is to compare it with a human hair: "if you take a hair off from the top of your head, you can see that it's very thin, and now if you take something that is a hundred thousand times thinner than that, that's a nanometer."

Nanotechnology develops the ability to observe and manipulate particles at the atomic level, where everyday materials "start to act in unimaginable ways".

At the Computational Nanoscience Group at UC Berkeley, they focus on the "application and development of cutting-edge classical quantum simulation tools". Go visit!