07x01 - Size and Scale

[bunniefuu]

Coming up on Dragonfly TV Nano,

we're counting billions, searching for

nano among us, and discovering that

gross is good.

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided by

the National Science Foundation,

supporting education and research across

all fields of science and engineering.

The National Science Foundation, where

discoveries begin.

Dragonfly TV. Dragonfly

TV.

I'm Eric, and we're back with a brand new

season of Dragonfly TV, and this season's

new star is Nano.

Every episode is about the Nano world, or

things that are really, really small.

In fact, Nano-sized things are so small,

you can't even see them.

Why would we make a TV show about things

you can't even see?

No, we're not crazy. You see, the

nanoscale may be small, but it's going to

have a big impact on everything. Some say

that nanoscience has started a

technological revolution.

See what I mean?May I have the future,

please?

Thank you. Breakthroughs in

nanotechnology may bring cool and

eco-friendly cars, shirts that change

color instantly, or new ways to k*ll

cancer cells.

So how small is the nanoscale?

What about a strand of my hair?

Is this nano?This single

strand of hair is about



It's pretty hard to imagine something

that's 100,000 times smaller than a human

hair, right?Now, I know this sounds

crazy, but sometimes in order to

understand how small something is, you

have to start big. Let's join

Ebony and Jasmine on their nano quest.

That's my cousin Jasmine. And that's me,

Ebony. We're only 13, but we've been

around long enough to notice how gadgets

keep getting smaller and smaller. MP3

player, cell phones, computers. My mom

says it's all because of nanotechnology.

We know nano things are really small.

What does nano actually mean?We're on a

way to find out. We heard about these

funny jugglers called the Nano Brothers

at the Museum of Science. Does that mean

they're teeny, tiny jugglers?What do

jugglers know about nanotechnology anyway?

Amazing Nano Brothers Juggling

Show! Ohh Joel,

what are you doing?Can you people see

anything on top of that ridiculous little

stage?Human beings can't see things

measured in nanometers. A nanometer is a

billionth of a meter. That's a billionth

of this. Don't worry, folks. I came

prepared. Oh, you did?I did. I brought

one of these. A magnifying

glass. I still don't think Joel quite

understands how small a nanometer is.

Isn't it weird how you can't even see

nano-sized things?I know. A billion

nanometers in a meter. I mean, it was

really nice of a nanobrothers to let us

use this meter stick. Maybe we should try

and find something the length of one

nanometer, something so small that a

billion of it would fit on a meter.

Slow down. We don't even know what a

billion looks like. We can look for a

billion things, and after that... We can

look for something one nanometer long on

NanoQuest.

We decided to go someplace crowded like

Fanuel Hall. If we count all the people

who visit every day, we can figure out

how long it would take to add up to a

billion people.

We realized we can just ask somebody how

manypeople come through every year. How

many people come through here a year?

About 300,000. If you

divide a billion by 300,000,

it takes 3,030 years for a billion

people to visit Faneuil Hall. That's too

far in the future to understand. Yeah.

What can we see a billion of now?Maybe we

should try something smaller, like candy.

I know this one place where they make

candy hearts. Candy hearts!

I want candy

Whoa, I just thought it looked like a

billion. But we can't even count this

much. Maybe we can count the boxes. Yeah.

This

is gonna take forever. Yeah.

My guy just said that they filled 500

boxes per minute, or five million candy

hearts a day. So how many days worth of

candy would it take to get to a billion?

Let's see. If we divide a billion by five

million candy hearts, it would take 200

days. Anything to count onto a billion

would take forever. The next thing you

gotta start counting graphs. That's a

good idea. I was kidding.

There's so many blades of grass here. Do

you think there might be a billion?I

think there might be at least two

billion. But how are we actually gonna

count this whole field?I mean, what can

we use?Hey, you see that piece of saw

over there?Well, yeah, we can cut that

up. We can use a meter stick and cut out

a five-centimeter square and then cut how

many blades there are on that square and

then estimate how many blades of grass

there are on a whole field. Okay.







Fifty...553! We're done! Whoo!

Now it's time to do the math. Ready?The

groundskeeper told us the fill was 90 by



First, we calculated that there were 400

grass patches in a square meter. If we

multiply 553 blades of grass in a

patch by 400, that's about



times 4,500 square

meters. 995

million?995 million?That's the course

of whatever gets a billion.

A billion blades of grass on one football

field?Who knew?Not me. Now,

what can you find a billion of?Well, you

can forget billionaires because no one

keeps a billion dollar bills stacked in a

vault. So keep thinking, and while your

brain's in gear, let's move on to the

nano challenge.

What round object is 1 billionth of the

Earth's diameter?Is it a grain of sand?

I said one grain of sand.

Thank you. From the top, is it a grain

of sand?Or a

marble?Or a

beach ball?Or the

Roman Colosseum?

Or maybe it's the moon?

Which one of these objects is 1 billionth

the diameter of the Earth?Can you figure

it out before the end of the show?I'll

give you a clue later on. Next, it's

back to Ebony and Jasmine, who did a

great job finding a billionth of

something. Now for the real challenge.

How can they find a nanometer or

something that's 1 billionth of a

meter?Hmm

How can I cut this into a billion

pieces?Like

so.

Now that we have a billion of something,

it's time to find something that's one

nanometer big. Yeah, but I can't imagine

a billion of anything that could fit on

this stick. What's the smallest thing you

can think of?Hey, look, there's an ant.

How big do you think that is?It's about

one centimeter. Are you saying I'm fat?

That probably means that you can only fit



right, and we need something way smaller.

Something nano sized. I know

bacteria. It's so small that you need a

microscope to see it.

We went to a Harvard lab to meet Dave, a

scientist who's into helping us with our

NanoQuest. Our goal here is just to find

something that's one nanometer in size.

Awesome. Well, these are bacteria

about 2,000 nanometers in size. Is there

a way we can see something that's closer

to a nanometer size?My friend Ellen has a

really awesome microscope. I'm gonna take

you to go see Ellen.

We're actually looking for something

that's less than 2,000 nanometers. I have

some flu virus. Would you like to look at

that?All right. All rightSo this is the

microscope that we're going to use. Wow,

that's humongous. Yeah. It takes a really

big microscope to see something really

small.

That's our virus particle. How big do you

think it is in nanometers?It is

.631 microns.



Wow. Now, is there anything small that we

can look at?Yes, I can take you to my

friend Richard. What

I'm going to do is I'm going to scan my

eyes.

Thank you. Wow. Look at that, the door

open.

We got dressed up again. I went to a

clean room where they used special

microscopes to change things on the

nanoscale. So we're looking for something

smaller than 631 nanometers. This

computer chip trench are about



even there, we only saw a little path on

a computer chip that was 200 nanometers

long. So Richard sent us out to see

another scientist. Now we want to find

something that's one nanometer big. If

you come downstairs, I may have something

that can help. So this

here is what's called a nanowire, and

this nanowire is about 100 nanometers

across. It's much like a very small hair.

And as we zoom in, you can see that the

nanowire is built up of little blocks,

much like you pile Lego blocks up to make

a tower. Well, guess what?Each of these

Lego blocks is about 1 nanometer

tall. You just hear what he said. One,

one, one, one nanometer tall. That means

our quest is over. We have pictures to

prove it.

Those are some really nice pics. Yeah, I

know. I love all the candy and all the

colors. Yeah. Okay, so let's make a

chart. The football field had almost a

billion blades of grass. The candy

factory makes five million candy hearts a

day. And Feno Hall has about



looked for something one nanometer in

size. The ant was one centimeter, the

bacteria was 2,000 nanometers, the

virus was 631 nanometers.

TheThe cap on the computer chip was just



little bit of nanowire was one

nanometer. That's one billionth of a

meter.

Nano Brothers would be so proud of us.

Yeah, they would. But if technology keeps

making my phone any smaller, I'll never

keep track of it.

Jasmine makes a funny point. No one's

going to make a phone that's too small to

use, but nanotechnology will keep making

them smarter. Take these two phones, for

instance. This phone is three years old

and it just makes phone calls. But this

phone, the same size, makes phone calls,

of course, but it also plays MP threes,

records video, surfs the web and sends

e-mail. That's because

nanotechnology helps engineers fit more

and more computing power into a small

space. How do they do it?

Now let's leave the nanoscale for a

minute and talk about something bigger

and slimier.

Mucus. Gross, yes,

but also good. However, too much of a

good thing is bad. And that's where we

turn to nanoscience and Doctor.

Superfine.

Let's go. There once was a boy

who dreamed of being a

superhero.

Physicist.

I am Captain Superfine. Oh,

Dad, not again. I'm a

superhero. I'm Rich Superfine,

and I study cilia. Cilia are these fine

hairs that beat inside your lung, and as

they beat, they move mucus up from your

lung to your throat. They do that to get

rid of bacteria and dust that you breathe

in every day. So these cilia we

study in cells and real

biological cilia, and Adam over here

makes artificial cilia. So this is. Is

water that's being moved by the

artificial cilia. What do they move in

the lung?Mucus. Mucus. Mucus.

That's gross. Nobody likes mucus. She

used microscopes to look at cilia for

being able to zoom in and see some of the

finer details at the nanometer scale. One

of the major things going on in

biological physics these days is to

combine different microscope techniques.

With a huge team of computer scientists

and physicists, we created the

nanomanipulator system. What is that

thing?So this combination of the handheld

pen here to control the microscope and

feel what's going on was developed here

in our lab, and that allows you to feel

cilia in biological cells. You want to be

able to see the specimen, but you also

want to be able to manipulate it to

measure forces in it. I have a research

group that we call the Superfine Research

Group, and I have fantastic graduate

students. Cilia dance is something. we

just came up with, and we used arms for

motors. And then we found if we made our

arms move, the whole group of us will go

back and forth, just like a cilia does.

Get silly. Get silly.

At the end of the day, I love coming home

to my girls, Molly and Clara. So the

girls got involved with mixing up the

magnetic material and then patterning it

so they create this artificial cilia.

Some of the cilia that we've made is now

on exhibit at the Morehead Planetarium.

When I'm not in the lab, I love to do

woodworking. It has a lot of the same

challenges of building instruments in the

laboratory. He's a great dad. We've

learned a lot from him. It really works

out to have a dad as a scientist. We can

come home from school and ask questions.

Superfine!

Maybe Dr. Superfine should change his

name to Dr. Superfine Particles.

This nanoscale stuff is everywhere, not

just in technology. It's in nature and in

our bodies. We'll see more nano in nature

in just a bit. Now it's back to you

geniuses at home. Have you figured out

what round object is 1 billionth the

diameter of the Earth?Is it a grain of

sand, a marble, a beach ball, the Roman

Colosseum, or the moon?Well, here's a

hint. The Earth is about 8000 miles, or



So get out your calculators and get to

work. The Nano Challenge answer is coming

up soon, but first, right now it's time

for a ride in the Zoom Cam.

Zoomer is going to take us on a ride into

the Nano world. That right

there is a human hand, and like most

hands, it's covered in skin. We usually

think of skin as being soft and smooth,

but as we zoom in a little closer.

We can see that the surface of the skin

is a lot like the surface of Mars.

Did you know that the skin is the largest

organ in the human body?Whoa, look at

those big, round, glassy things. They

look like marbles, but they're not.

They're actually beads of sweat that come

out of our pores. Whoa, and that is a

human hair. That's about 100,000

nanometers thick. That's a huge bead of

sweat. Right now, things are being

magnified thousands of times, and we can

start to see the individual skin cells.

But let's cruise a little deeper.

I'm going to stick my Zoomer high beams

on. See that in the high beams?Those are

the layers of skin that keep our insides

in and our outsides out. They're less

than 100 nanometers thick.

Oh, Zoomer can zoom no more, so hang on

tight.

Those Zoomer rides are always a trip. Now

let's catch up with Regina, Randy, Linda,

Harrison, Jared, and Lorenz, who are on a

nano scavenger hunt. We're those

nanos. Crikey, they're hard to find.

I'm Regina, and these are my friends

Linda, Harrison, Jared, Lorenz, and

Randy. We live in Chapel Hill, North

Carolina.

We all got to be friends at science camp

last summer at the Morehead Planetarium

and Science Center. Today, we're getting

together for a science camp reunion, and

we decided to come back to Morehead

because their planetarium has really cool

star shows.

That's so crazy. I'm

so glad to be here. Whoa, guys, guys,

look at this. downstairs. Hey, why

are we still standing here?Come on, let's

go.

Zoom in?What's this all about?Well, let's

zoom in and find out. Uh ha.

Let's see my skin. Ew, that's hair.

Things look really different close up. Is

that what I think it is?Mucus!

and played with the mucus display. It was

gross and really cool, too. I love

mucus. What does it have to do with

nanoscience?Well, this exhibit shows that

these things called cilia line your lungs

and they push out the mucus from your

lungs to help you breathe.

Yummy! Can you believe that one cilium is



small. We met Michelle at our

science camp last summer. She's the

exhibit manager here. Michelle told us

she had an idea for a cool new nano

exhibit, and she was wondering if we

could help her out. If you'd like to go

out and find things, things that have to

do with nanoscience and things that have

to do with nanotechnology, bring those

objects back and we could create a

display together that we could share with

our visitors. Sounds cool, you guys. Are

you guys ready?Yeah, definitely. You got

my vote. It's a Nana race.

Jared, Regina, Harrison on one team, and

Linda, Randy, and Lawrence on the other.

Who will take the lead?And who will beg

for nano mercy?Stay tuned.

Nano. Where are you, Nano?

Nano. Nano, come here. You guys, I think

we'd be more successful if we actually

did some research about finding Nano.

Oh, cool. One billion nanometers in a

meter. It says here that nanotechnology

is in leaps. And computers didn't know

that. It's enclosed and also in sports

equipment, too. Yeah, it looks like small

stuff's everywhere.

Hey, you guys, I found this out of a

book. It's called Space Elevator. It's

this machine that will take you to space.

It's made out of nanotubes. What's a

nanotube?They're nanoparticles that make

things stronger. There's this company

that's making these technologies like

iPods and cell phones that you can take

outside, and then you can wash them

perfectly on a sunny day. We

visited the botanical garden. Oh, guys,

here's the lotus leaves over here. I read

that lotus leaves have kind of like a

nail technology that makes them

waterproof. I think it has something to

do with hair or something. Oh, yeah, the

hairs on these leaves are nano-sized, so

we can't see them or feel them.

Our team went to a sports store to find a

special tennis racket made with

nanotechnology. Hey, look at this

one. It says that it's made with

nanotechnology. Maybe it's made of carbon

nanotubes. It feels quite normal to me. I

heard that it makes things really strong

and light, too. I asked the manager and

he said the nanopants are over here. They

are water resistant and stain resistant.

Looks like something I'd probably wear to

school almost. These pants feel soft,

kind of like the lotus leaf. Kind of

copies of them. So nanotechnology

is in nature and made by people.

We made a stop at the North Carolina

Museum of Life and Science. Kent, one of

the animal keepers at the museum, showed

us some of his pet geckos. Here we are

with the gecko that you're looking for.

Hey yo, what's up?This gecko in

particular, has got tiny hairs on the

bottoms of his feetThat allow him to walk

up glass. There is a type of shoe that

maybe you guys can try out that has

something similar to the little hairs on

the bottom of them to help with rock

climbing. This is

harder than it looks.

Hey, guys, check this out. Isn't it cool?

I got it from the museum gift shop. Oh,

my gosh. I could see two colors. They

told me that because of the nanostructure

and the butterfly's wings, it becomes

those two colors. Ohh I've heard about a

makeup being made like this. When you put

it on your face, there's two different

colors when you move it. We went shopping

to see if we could find makeup that looks

like the colors in butterfly wings. It's

like blue and green at the same time.

Maybe the makeup has nanostructures like

the butterfly wings. Hey,

we went to see Mike. He's a nanoscientist

at UNC Chapel Hill. We told Mike about

some of the stuff we already found, and

he took some pictures for us with one of

his microscopes, and it's actually able

to image below 1 nanometer.

So this is a butterfly wing. End-to-end

distance of each edge is



printed out some images from his atomic

force microscope that we could use in our

display. Thanks so much. Well, sure.

We all met back up at the planetarium

with all of the objects we collected. It

was time to put the final display

together. So how do you guys think we

should organize it?We decided to group

the objects into three categories: nano

in nature, nano in technology, and nano

in the future. Putting the display

together was a great time for us to share

what we had learned. For the nature

category, Team 2 brought in some candles

to represent carbon nanotubes. When you

burn a candle, there are carbon nanotubes

in the soot. Harrison explained about the

lotus leaf and how it had nano-sized

hairs that kept it clean and made it

waterproof. Both of the teams had gotten

something to represent nano and

technology at the sporting goods store.

Team 1 had the nano pants, and Team 2 had

the tennis racket. To represent Nano

in the future, Linda and Laurence brought

in some drawings they had made. One of a

laptop that you could see in the bright

sun, and another of a windshield that

repelled rain. We finished laying

everything out, and then Michelle showed

up to check out our work. Hi! How

are you?Great. Yeah.

Wow!You guys, this is fantastic. You did

an excellent job. We learned that nano is

everywhere. It's in nature, it's in

technology made by people, and scientists

are working on nanotechnology inventions

for the future. Bye, Michelle, thank you

so much. We had so much fun

working together, and we really hope that

people coming to the museum can learn

something from our display.

Instead of trying to count what is being

changed by nanotechnology, maybe it's

easier to count what nanotechnology is

not changing, like dogs,

or cats, or bagels,

or pennies, or rainbows,

or love, or laughing.

When I think of nanotechnology, I think

of itty-bitty, teeny-witty, little, tiny,

little things that you can't even see.

The manipulation of atoms and molecules.

HuhIt's a big word. It's so small you

can't see it with the naked eye. Tinier

than tiny?A nanometer is one

billionth of a meter. Like, incredibly

many. Really small. Like, this small.

So small that they make bacteria look

like mammoths.

Where's an expert when you need one?You

can only see nano things with a very,

very strong microscope. I'm not very

much of a small thinker. I think of

futuristic things. Something we don't

quite know about, but we have a good idea

about. It sounds like something out of a

science fiction book. Isn't

nanotechnology in, like, everything

nowadays?Computers and

electronic devices. Like an iPod Nano. I

think of medicine. It's very small

science. Tell us what

you think about nano. What are the

coolest uses of nanotechnology?Go to the

Dragonfly TV website and let us know.

Here's how. Click on over to the

Dragonfly TV website at

pbskidsgo.org. Stream a cool

DFTV video. Try your hand at the new

Nanobots game, or tell us what you think

about nanotechnology. It's your place to

share your ideas. What

round object is 1 billionth the

diameter of the Earth?It's a

marble. A marble is 1 billionth

the diameter of our planet. You could

line up a billion marbles end to end,

straight through the center of the Earth.

Now, if you shrunk the Earth down to a

meter, or the distance between my two

hands, imagine how small that marble

would be. Well, that's how unbelievably

small a nanometer is. You'd need one of

those great big microscopes to see it.

So. Back to my personal nanometer

quest. I'm going to cut this meter stick

into a billion pieces.

Now for a nano goodbye. See you next time

on Dragonfly TV Nano.

I want candy I

want candy Hey Hey Hey

Hey

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Supporting education and research across

all fields of science and engineering.

The National Science Foundation, where

discoveries begin.

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