This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Ruth Lectures. This lecture in the series

The Triumph of Technology, given by Lord Brewer's, was originally broadcast in 2005.

Good evening and welcome to the University of Glasgow's Gilmore Hill Theatre for the fourth

of this year's Reith

Lectures. This evening, Alec Broers turns his attention to an area of science in which he was

a pioneer, nanotechnology. The prefix nano, meaning one billionth, is used to describe the process

of miniaturization that has come to play a crucial part in the development of many

aspects of science today. As a PhD researcher in Cambridge in the 1960s, Alec Broers was part

of the pioneering work on the electron scanning microscope that allowed the detailed investigation

of particles hitherto unreachable by human beings, such as salt crystals

and blood cells. He went on to conceive of the idea of using that microscope as a writing instrument,

and in 1976 he wrote that date on half a micron. And if you don't quite understand the

significance of that, just remember that a human hair is 80 microns.

So nanotechnology opens up limitless possibilities for technological advance. But there are those who believe it could give rise to terrible disaster too,

creating a sci-fi world of machines and diseases capable of striking

back at their human inventors.

Tonight, as he continues his explanation of the triumph of technology, he addresses both

possibilities.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our Reith Lecturer 2005, Alec Broers.

Thank you. please welcome our Reith Lecturer 2005, Alec Broers.

Thank you, Sue.

Since time immemorial, people have been entranced by structures of great size from the colossus of roads and the great pyramid themselves no mean technical achievements to the mighty cunard queens built here in glasgow and whichever is transiently the tallest building in the world,

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