Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Just for Fun: The Playful Image of Nanotechnology

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
NanoEthics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In 1959, Richard Feynman suggested that the most compelling reason to pursue nanoscale research might be ‘just for fun.’ This article traces a history of playful images and ludic practices in nanotechnology. Two case studies—nanocars and nanosoccer—exemplify the ways in which scientific research mobilizes speculative futures, less through engineering design or stepwise protocol than through the recreational dynamics of play. Although such molecular toys might appear frivolous, they index the increasingly widespread conditions of play labor, or ‘playbor’, shaping today’s technoculture. Exploring the processes of transmutation and transvaluation by which technological imaginaries are rendered operative, this article tells a story of how the nanoworld became an everyday reality by becoming a game.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Al-Gailani S (2009) Magic, science and masculinity: marketing toy chemistry sets. Stud Hist Philos Sci Part A 40:372–381

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Baum ML (2009) What’s shrink’s story? Shrink nanotechnologies. Retrieved 1 April, 2011, from http://www.shrinknano.com/about/

  3. Beck JC, Wade M (2004) Got game: how the gamer generation is reshaping business forever. Harvard Business School Press, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bell AR (2008) The childish nature of science: exploring the child/science relationship in popular non-fiction. In: Bell AR, Davies SR, Mellor F (eds) Science and its publics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp 79–98

    Google Scholar 

  5. Bend it like NIST: Tiny soccer players pave way for microrobots (2008). Gaithersburg, Maryland, National Institute of Standards and Technology

  6. Bensaude-Vincent B (2009) Les vertiges de la technoscience. Façonner le monde atome par atome. La Découverte, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  7. Boyd J (2005) Rice scientists build world’s first single-molecule car: ‘Nanocar’ with buckyball wheels paves way for other molecular machines. Rice University News & Media. Retrieved 30 March, 2011, from http://media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=7850

  8. Boyd J (2006) Rice scientists attach motor to single-molecule car: Light-powered ‘nanocar’ helps researchers test bottom-up construction. Rice University News & Media. Retrieved 30 March, 2011, from http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=8448

  9. Cooper M (2008) Life as surplus: biotechnology and capitalism in the neoliberal era. University of Washington Press, Seattle

    Google Scholar 

  10. Dyer-Witheford N, De Peuter G (2009) Games of empire: global capitalism and video games. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

    Google Scholar 

  11. Edery D, Mollick E (2009) Changing the game: how video games are transforming the future of business. FT Press, Upper Saddle River

    Google Scholar 

  12. Feyerabend P (1975) Against method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge. Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands

    Google Scholar 

  13. Feynman R (1960) How to build an automobile smaller than this Dot ➤•. Popular Sci 177(5):114–116, 230–232

    Google Scholar 

  14. Feynman R (1960) There’s plenty of room at the bottom. Eng Sci 23:22–36

    Google Scholar 

  15. Fortun M (2008) Promising genomics: Iceland and deCODE genetics in a world of speculation. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  16. Gee B (1989) Amusement chests and portable laboratories: practical alternatives to the regular laboratory. In: James FAJL (ed) The development of the laboratory: essays on the place of experiment in industrial civilization. Macmillan, London, pp 37–59

    Google Scholar 

  17. Gimzewski JK (2008) Nanotechnology: the endgame of materialism. Leonardo 41(3):259–264

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Griessl SJH, Lackinger M, Jamitzky F, Markert T, Hietschold M, Heckl WM (2004) Room-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy manipulation of single C60 molecules at the liquid-solid interface: Playing nanosoccer. J Phys Chem B 108:11556–11560

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Grimes A, Breslauer DN, Long M, Pegan J, Lee LP, Khine M (2008) Shrinky-dink microfluidics: rapid generation of deep and rounded patterns. Lab Chip 8(1):170

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Haynes R (1994) From faust to strangelove: representations of the scientist in western literature. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  21. Hietschold M, Lackinger M, Griessl S, Heckl W, Gopakumar T, Flynn G (2005) Molecular structures on crystalline metallic surfaces—from STM images to molecular electronics. Microelectron Eng 82(3–4):207–214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Huizinga J (1949) Homo ludens: a study of the play-element in culture. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London

    Google Scholar 

  23. Juul J (2005) Half-real: video games between real rules and fictional worlds. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  24. Keene M (2007) “Every boy & girl a scientist”: instruments for children in interwar Britain. Isis 98:266–289

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Kroto HW, Heath JR, O’Brien SC, Curl RF, Smalley RE (1985) C60: Buckminsterfullerene. Nature 318:162–163

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Kücklich J (2005) Precarious playbour: Modders and the digital games industry. Fibreculture 5, http://five.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-025-precarious-playbour-modders-and-the-digital-games-industry/

  27. Laszlo P (2000) Playing with molecular models. Hyle 6:85–97

    Google Scholar 

  28. Loeve S (2010) About a definition of nano: how to articulate nano and technology? Hyle 16:3–18

    Google Scholar 

  29. McCain G, Segal EM (1969) The game of science. Brooks/Cole Publishing, Belmont, Calif

  30. Michalewicz MT (1998) Nano-cars and buckyball pyramids. Annals of Improbable Research 4(2):18–19

    Google Scholar 

  31. Michalewicz MT (2008) Sensors and metrology devices from Quantum-π: From NanoTrek® to tunneling photo-detector array. Retrieved 30 March, 2011, from http://www.quantum-pi.com/PAPERS/Quantum-Pi_Poznan_08.pdf

  32. Milburn C (2008) Nanovision: engineering the future. Duke University Press, Durham

    Google Scholar 

  33. Milburn C (2009) Digital matters: video games and the cultural transcoding of nanotechnology. In: Kaiser M, Maasen S, Kurath M, Rehmann-Sutter C (eds) Governing future technologies: nanotechnology and the rise of an assessment regime. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 109–127

    Google Scholar 

  34. Milburn C (2010) Tactical atomism. In: Innes-Brown V, Malcolm C, Williams P (eds) Art in the age of nanotechnology. Perth, John Curtin Gallery, pp 8–20

    Google Scholar 

  35. Newman ME (2009) Nanosoccer robots ready to compete in upcoming robocup games. NIST Tech Beat. Retrieved 1 April, 2011, from http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/techbeat/tb2009_0616.htm#soccer

  36. Nordmann A (2004) Nanotechnology’s worldview: New space for old cosmologies. IEEE Tech Soc Mag 23(4):48–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Nordmann A, Schwarz A (2009) Lure of the ‘yes’: the seductive power of technoscience. In: Kaiser M, Maasen S, Kurath M, Rehmann-Sutter C (eds) Governing future technologies: nanotechnology and the rise of an assessment regime. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 255–277

    Google Scholar 

  38. NSTC (1999) Nanotechnology: shaping the world atom by atom. National Science and Technology Council, Washington

    Google Scholar 

  39. Osgood AJ (2008) Probing molecular adsorption and mechanics at the atomic scale: the nanocar family of molecules. Ph.D. Dissertation, Rice University

  40. Pesce M (2000) The playful world: how technology is transforming our imagination. Ballantine Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  41. Postigo H (2003) From Pong to Planet Quake: post-industrial transitions from leisure to work. Inform Comm Soc 6(4):593–607

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Roco M (2001) From vision to the implementation of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative. J Nanoparticle Res 3:5–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Rothemund PWK (2006) Paul W.K. Rothemund—senior research associate. The DNA and Natural Algorithms Group, Caltech. Retrieved 6 July, 2010, from http://www.dna.caltech.edu/~pwkr/

  44. Schrage M (2000) Serious play: how the world’s best companies simulate to innovate. Harvard Business School Press, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  45. Schummer J (2006) Gestalt switch in molecular image perception: the aesthetic origin of molecular nanotechnology in supramolecular chemistry. Found Chem 8:53–72

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Shirai Y, Osgood AJ, Zhao Y, Kelly KF, Tour JM (2005) Directional control in thermally driven single-molecule nanocars. Nano Lett 5:2330–2334

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Smalley RE (2000) Bucky balls, fullerenes, and the future: an oral history interview with professor Richard E. Smalley. Interviewers: R. Davis-Floyd & K. J. Cox. Rice University, Houston, Texas. Retrieved 3 March, 2010, from http://www.davis-floyd.com/USERIMAGES/File/BuckyballsFullerenessandthefuture.pdf

  48. Stark RW (2007) Atomic force microscopy: getting a feeling for the nanoworld. Nat Nanotechnol 2:461–462

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Stein D (2007) Nanopores: molecular ping-pong. Nat Nanotechnol 2:741–742

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Stojanovic MN, Stefanovic D (2003) A deoxyribozyme-based molecular automaton. Nat Biotechnol 21(9):1069–1074

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Sunder Rajan K (2006) Biocapital: the constitution of postgenomic life. Duke University Press, Durham

    Google Scholar 

  52. Terranova T (2004) Network culture: politics for the information age. Pluto Press, London

    Google Scholar 

  53. Thacker E (2005) The global genome: biotechnology, politics, and culture. MIT Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  54. Turner GLE (1987) Presidential address: scientific toys. Br J Hist Sci 20:377–398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Waldby C, Mitchell R (2006) Tissue economies: blood, organs, and cell lines in late capitalism. Duke University Press, Durham

    Google Scholar 

  56. Watson JD (1968) The double helix: a personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA. Atheneum, New York

    Google Scholar 

  57. Williams M (2009) Rice rolls out new nanocars. Rice University News & Media. Retrieved 30 March, 2011, from http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=12042

Download references

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Alexei Grinbaum, Ana Delgado, Catherine Allamel-Raffin, Chris Robinson, Martin Ruivenkamp, Arie Rip, Marc Pavlopoulos, Alfred Nordmann, Rasmus Slaattelid, and Fern Wickson for their expert advice and warm encouragement. I am especially grateful to Sacha Loeve, Vincent Bontems, and Chris Toumey for their incisive comments and suggestions, which have helped me tremendously.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English and Program in Science & Technology Studies, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Colin Milburn

Authors
  1. Colin Milburn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Colin Milburn.

Additional information

Guest Editors: Rasmus Slaattelid and Fern Wickson

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Milburn, C. Just for Fun: The Playful Image of Nanotechnology. Nanoethics 5, 223–232 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0120-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0120-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation