WELCOME TO THE NANOWORLD

Over the course of the 20th century, the quest for the infinitely small never ceased to enthrall scientists, and turned our world upside down, from computer science to nuclear physics, from biology to materials science. Today, new disciplines are providing access to an even smaller and more fascinating world: the nanoworld.

Tiny particles, a millionth of a millimeter (50,000 times thinner than a human hair), nanos open up immense and dizzying prospects. In the space of almost three decades, researchers have managed to unravel the mysteries of this tiny universe, with its highly specific properties. Nanotechnologies now make it possible to manufacture – atom-by-atom – ever smaller and more powerful materials and objects. The revolution is underway in many fields. Nanomedicine, for example, offers prodigious advances in vaccine development, reconstructive surgery and cancer treatment.

But working on the scale of this invisible crystallizes many fears. What are the ethical, human and societal risks of nanotechnology? And what would happen if they fell into the wrong hands?

Alongside eminent international scientists - some of them Nobel laureates (Harold Kroto, Gerd Binning...) - we plunge into the heart of a tiny, captivating and fearsome universe that could completly reshape our reality.