Sixty six years ago, on this day, December 29th, 1959,
Physicist Richard Feynman gives a speech entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, which is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology.
“”There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Physics” was a lecture given by physicist Richard Feynman at the annual American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959.[1] Feynman considered the possibility of direct manipulation of individual atoms as a more robust form of synthetic chemistry than those used at the time. Versions of the talk were reprinted in a few popular magazines, but it went largely unnoticed until the 1980s.
The title references the popular quote “There is always room at the top.” attributed to Daniel Webster (who is thought to have said this phrase in response to warnings against becoming a lawyer, which was seen as an oversaturated field in the 19th century).”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 316ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was there were lots of smart people knocking around in the 1950s. Lots of funding for them to, within the sprawling empire that was the American military-industrial complex.
The specific context was Feynman was damn smart (once you’re that stratospheric, I am not sure there’s much point in distinguishing between von Neumann etc etc).
What I think we can learn from this – I need to read more Feynman, and more about Feynman.
What happened next? Feynman kept on being absurdly smart. In one of his memoirs he talks about, during the Challenger investigation, talking to engineers on the ground and finding out they were way smarter than their bosses. Obvs.
Also, he dropped the rubber o-ring in the ice water. Now that is showmanship…
The Challenger Disaster – Richard Feynman
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
December 29, 1969 – AAAS symposium on “Climate and Man”
December 29, 1972 – Schneider meets Sullivan
December 29, 1995 – Sydney Morning Herald points out year has been hottest yet…
December 29, 1999 – Russian sub commander turned eco-whistleblower is acquitted.