Miniaturization on the one hand, and atomic Lego on the other, the two paths of nanotechnology are building a new world. Huge research budgets are being devoted to conquering the El Dorado of the early third millennium. Nanos could soon represent a market of 750 to 2,000 billion (milliards) dollars in 2015, and create 10 million jobs! For some people, they promise to be the solution to the challenges of the future, in every domain from energy to medicine. The possibilities are mind-boggling. At a nano scale, everything comes together, they say, for the best of all possible worlds… For others, mad scientists drunk on dreams of power are getting carried away: some of them are already working on producing artificial life, intelligent organisms able to adapt and modify themselves, without human intervention. A first synthetic virus has already been created! Others are already thinking about trans-humanity. Will we have to choose between a catastrophic scenario and a new totalitarianism?

Dorothée Benoît-Browaeys describes nanotechnology’s dizzyingly rapid rise in importance and presents the data for a public debate: our future is at stake. Ever-increasing miniaturization, the exploration of the infinitely small and the manipulation of atoms are opening a new continent up to technology. Nanos are invisible, but they’ve already started to enter our daily lives. But at a scale that’s nothing compared to what we can expect soon. Are we about to plunge into the best of all possible nano-worlds?