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Univ. of Washington Announces First Nanotech Ph.D.
Scott Brauer writes: "The University of Washington's Center for Nanotechnology has announced that the UW will be host to the first nanotech degree program in the U.S. An article in The Daily, the campus newspaper, mentions here that the Ph.D. offered is an 'option program' within a group of other programs, meaning that 'students will earn simulatneous degrees in both nanotechnology and in one of nine other departments.' The program is estimated to have 20 to 40 students per year, including this year, as soon as the Board of Regents makes its expected vote of approval. Another article can be found here."
What good will it do to hang your nano-tech diploma on the wall, it will be too small for anyone to read.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
UW will be host to the first nanotech degree program in the US.
What a sleazy grab for headlines. Unless one works in an advanced IBM lab or the like, such a degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on. No one is currently in a position to "teach" nano-tech. It's like teaching warp-drive at this point. Okay, so I exaggerate. Not by much.
1Alpha7
Live to be Moderated
...you receive a diploma with REALLY tiny writing!
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The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
it had to be said it may as well have been me. The whole point of nanotech is that where we are now there are not alot of good uses. Take a look at the book (if you have not already) to see where stuff like this can take us. This *will* be very good.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
A Ph.D. in nanotech...
Still not as cool as a BA in Magic. (Awarded to Isaac Bonewits by the Universit of California, Berkley)
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Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Well, looks like my advanced studies plan just finalised. ;)
I can just picture my thesis: "The Gray Goo Scenario and University Cafeteria Supply Issues: a Modest Proposal".
I'll forego the obvious jokes about atomic-scale diplomas, labs, etc., as the humour so derived is way to small to notice. ;)
-TBHiX-
I want little nanosites that float in my bloodstream and automatically manufacture coffee when I need it!
And good coffee at that, not the sludge that comes out of the Office coffee pot!
Do you think that would make a good thesis?
You think THIS is silly? Here in teh UK, we (used to) give students grants and free tuition. Then someone noticed that it worked out cheaper than giving them state benefit and lowered unemployment figures.
Degree in the history of Darts, anyone?
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Ph.D. in Transporter Technology
Ph.D. in Holodeck Science
Ph.D. in Geology, focus of Planet Terraforming
...and dare I say it...
Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I can see it now.
Prof: You didn't hand in your project.
Student: It's right there.
Prof: Where? I don't see it.
Student: Right there, underneath that piece of dust.
Prof: Ah yes, I must have missed it.
--------- Beware the dragon, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
Nanotech will change all this - features will be way too small to show off .... instead we'll probably be bragging about "do you remember that cold you had last summer ..."
Drexler already has a degree in nanotechnology. If I remember the book jacket correctly (it's been a while), he went to some board at MIT, outlined a course of study for himself and asked for a PhD in Nanotech.
Here's the excerpt from wwww.foresight.org:
"Dr. Drexler received an S.B. degree from M.I.T. in Interdisciplinary Science, an S.M. degree from M.I.T. in Engineering (while a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow), and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. in Molecular Nanotechnology..."
-B
This is sad. After all these years of nanotechnology, people are only starting to have department of nanotechnology.
And, this also seem like a trendy thing (Stanford Mech Eng dept is hiring Physicists to teach quantum mechanics to their grad students so they can do nanotech blalh blah.
The gauntlet was thrown down by Feynman years ago : read this.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
I just can't see these degrees getting much respect until such time as there's actually something to teach to the students.
Actually, there is a lot to teach with regards to Nanotech. Sure, not actual means of creating and manipulating atmos/molecules to create objects, but there's a lot more than that. There are a few potential roads to nanotechnology, and all of them require a lot of effort and specialization. Wouldn't it make more sense for someone to get a degree in Nanotech while learning about protein folding, quantum mechanics, and the like, so to increase the chance of being able to combine these methods, than to make someone take more time to get multiple degrees to learn the same stuff?
There's also all the theoretical parts, the ideas that can't be tested yet, but still provide interesting work. When they get to the point of creating molecular machines, wouldn't it be nice to have software ready to help design them, and parts, and even entire machines, ready to start working on?
There is not, by any means, a shortage of things to study and research in such a degree program. The only shortage is of actual molecular nanotechnology itself, and this degree program will likely aim at getting to that point, at least at first.
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Actually, they didn't even do it right. It should have been.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
(You Have Been Trolled. You Have Lost. Have A Nice Day.)
It goes back to the wonderful days of USENET, when there wasn't such thing as this newfangled web. We used gopher, and we liked it. And we read usenet with rn or trn, and we didn't have to deal with aol.com, and if we made our sigs more than 4 lines, we would see it being made fun of in alt.fan.warlord.
Then the floodgates opened... and today we get to read about pouring hot grits down a petrified Natalie Portman's shorts and get links to goatse.cx. (you know, if evolution is real, why are people seeming to become less and less intelligent?)
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
The reason that progress is slow at the start of a new field is that the pioneers have to teach themselves. Once a field is established by those people then a university can start 'professing' what the pioneers discovered and grant degrees in the subject.
This greatly expands the quantity of people available to work in the field, and allows the graduates to look down their noses at the pioneers and say: "We don't hire people without degrees." This has the benefit of allowing less talented people to work without having to compete with the rare people who can teach themselves to do something at a Ph.D. level without formal instruction.
I can tell you that this isn't merely a grab for attention as some have claimed in their slashdot responses, but is more a step in the right direction. What better school than the University of Washington, who already receives more research dollars than every other public school in the country, and receives the second most overall. A degree in nanotech will create an atmosphere where more and more researchers will soon be able to dedicate their potential and their academic prowress towards moving in the right direction for a true start.
Either way, it will still be many years before anyone could truly guage the effectiveness of this program, but if the program succeedes, you can guarantee that they Ivy League Schools will be all over it.
The future is here, and boy will it be grand.
Look at the web pages for this "degree" and you find out that it is actually an "option" on another degree program. That is, one actually gets a Ph.D. in physics or chemistry or another related field (they're listed) "with a nanotechnology option". This means that you fulfill the requirements of the Ph.D. program of your choice plus take additional coursework and fulfill extra requirements for the nanotechnology option.
Also, take a look at the courses listed on the web page. The only ones that mention nanotechnology are seminar-type courses. As a graduate student, I can tell you that these seminar courses usually involve sitting around and reading/discussing papers and ideas in your field of study. The remaining balance of courses are taken from physics, chemistry, etc. and are courses that majors in these fields are probably already taking.
That said, this is the way new graduate programs often start up. That is, they start by being options on traditional degree programs. Then, as the field expands and the amount of knowledge in the field grows, the options turn into true degree-granting programs of their own. See, for example, the many Computational Science programs in the United States. A few years ago these were all options on more traditional degrees from computer science or physics or chemistry or other related field. Now they are turning into real degree-granting departments at some schools.
No kidding. Just last week I built a self-replicating robot that rips apart any carbon structures it finds and makes copies of itself. I thought it was pretty impressive, but now some clueless frat boy with a Ph.D. is going to end up getting the position I rightfully deserve.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
This may be the first degree >program, but te first nanotech PhD was awarded to Eric Drexler, some years ago.
MIT, I think it was.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
if they build a nano humanoid robot will they equip it with buckyballs?
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
Cole's Axiom: The sum of intelligence in the world is a constant. The population is increasing.
(and if anyone knows who actually said that, please let me know. I never knew.)
I go to the U of Washington, and while this program may be new, the focus on nanotech has long been a possible 'degree branch' in the BioEngineering and BioChem programs here.
I've got friends who're in these degrees and are speciallizing in Nanotechnology. It's almost bad that it is now its own program, because as everyone has already said, WHO CARES? There's very little practical job market for a graduate. Its almost like a story about a particularly charismatic ceramic engineering professor I heard once--he convinced a lot of students that cermaics was the future, and after they had gotten their degrees naturally they were screwed. At least with the background stuffed down your throat in the BioChem and BioEng departments you can go places.
Hopefully, the vapor will condense into a solid, viable department sometime in the not-too-distant future along with Nanotech's development into a solid, viable field with commercial (read: necessary) applications. The latter is, of course, a requirement of the former.
My friends probably wont be lining up to apply to this degree.
-S
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Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
Plus it's a degree in one of eight fields with an option in nano, they are:
Chemistry
Physics
Bioengineering
Chemical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Materials Science and Engineering
Biochemistry
Molecular Biotechnology
Physiology and Biophysics
All of which are good to have a degree in.
But when will the first Nanotech for Dummies be out?
managers...why god invented purgatory