A 40-minute live dramatic performance exploring nanoscale science and technology. Dan and Joel are brothers - Dan a know-it-all and Joel a naif - who must deliver a juggling show about atoms, molecules, nanoscale forces and scanning probe microscopy when it is discovered that the scheduled performers - the Nano Brothers - are too small to see. The performance delivers extraordinary visualizations created through juggling, lighting, and large-scale metaphors, and entertains family audiences through character acting, jokes with various levels of sophistication, stunts, and kid volunteer opportunities. The finale has Dan and Joel on 7-foot unicycles juggling various consumer products enhanced with nanotechnology. The show is available for traveling performances. Contact email@example.com.
- The nanoscale world is measured in billionths of meters, and it is too small to see.
- Matter behaves differently at the nanoscale, for example, gravity has less significance than the "stickiness" of atoms, smaller bits of material are more reactive than larger bits of the same material. Heat and motion are equivalent.
- Atoms are made of electrons zooming around a nucleus and the distance between the outer electrons and the nucleus of an atom is vast. Matter is mostly empty space.
- Materials are made of molecules with are made of different combinations of atoms
- A scanning probe microscope converts data about the forces of individual atoms to construct images of them.
- Don Eigler led the first team to use a scanning probe microscope to not only image but also to move individual atoms. This 1989 event is often considered the birth of nanotechnology.
- Nanotechnology is very new, but it is already being used in lots of commercial and consumer products.
- Care must be taken with using these new nano-enhanced materials.
- It's okay to ask questions and its fun to think about what things are really made of.
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