To end our week on a cheerful note, Freeman Dyson points to a positive trend affecting nanotechnology in an interview in TCS Daily:
I tell young people that the new technologies of computing, telecommunication, optical detection and microchemistry actually empower the amateur to do things that only professionals could do before.
Amateurs and small companies will have a growing role in the future of science. This will compensate for the increasing bureaucratization of the big organizations. Bright young people will start their own companies and do their own science.
Remember the original, positive meaning of amateur. —Christine
