Book Review: No Small Matter by Felice C. Frankel and George M. Whitesides

Where were George Whitesides and Felice Frankel when I was in college? Had I possessed a textbook created with the beauty, symmetry, lyricism, wit, and brevity of No Small Matter physics and chemistry might have been enjoyed rather than endured. A gorgeous coffee-table style representation of the complexities and relevance of nanotechnology, No Small Matter introduces and explains the world of the very small to those of us blind to all but the moderately large.

In his introduction, Whitesides reveals that “we understand the world intuitively over only a tiny range of sizes — sizes in the middle, between ‘very large’ and ‘very small.’” As we are limited in our perception of the ranges of light and sound, we are limited in our perception of size. “We have never personally dropped a galaxy, or knowingly sat on an individual atom.” In No Small Matter Whitesides and Frankel focus on the exploration of the world of the very, very small — the nanoscale. Nano=one billionth. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. To give perspective to anyone who has ever used a standard microscope, Whitesides reminds us that a micron, “or micrometer is much larger — a millionth of a meter, or a little less than the diameter of a red blood cell. So, we have now fallen down the rabbit hole into the world of things that are far smaller than the invisible.

Whitesides outlines the eight reasons for us to care about this realm of the incomprehensible: “Information Technology,” "Life and the Cell,” “Physical Measurement at the Atomic and Molecular Scale,” “The Unique Properties of Small Pieces of Matter,” “Materials,” “Quantum Phenomena,” “Medicine,” and “Energy, Water, and the Environment.” Taken as a collection of headings, this list seems dry and somewhat daunting; however, Whitesides expands upon each category with a passion that details why we should care — as though everything depends upon it — about this new world called nanotechnology.

"When things are large, they are what they are. When they are small, it’s a different game: they are what our measurements make them. At the marches — the regions too complicated for mathematics and too unfamiliar for intuition — strange creatures (with stranger behaviors) emerge … and our “experience” turns out to be a Classic Comic version of reality (whatever reality might be)."

I was hooked after this first page. With eight years of higher education and two degrees in the sciences behind me, I was relieved to, at last, see a scientist admitting that reality may, in fact, lie somewhere beyond our comprehension, and beyond the mathematics that were shoved down my reluctant throat. The sense of mystery and possibility that lies beneath the desert of data points and statistics served as a reminder of what was exciting about science when I was young.

Article Author: Christy Corp-Minamiji

Christy Corp-Minamiji is a livestock veterinarian, writer, and mother living in Northern California. She writes fiction and blogs on the eclectic range of topics that interest her.

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