Matthew Putman is an American scientist, educator, musician and film & stage producer. [1] He is best known for his work in nanotechnology, the science of working in dimensions smaller than 100 nanometers. Putman currently serves as the CEO of Nanotronics Imaging, an advanced machines and intelligence company that has redefined factory control through the invention of a platform that combines AI, automation, and sophisticated imaging to assist human ingenuity in detecting flaws in manufacturing. He recently built New York State’s first high-tech manufacturing hub, located in Building 20 of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
After receiving a B.A. in Music and Theater from Baldwin-Wallace University in Ohio, Putman worked as Vice President of Development for Tech Pro, Inc., a business launched by his parents, Kay and John Putman, in 1982. [2] He later received a PhD in Applied Mathematics and Physics, and served as a professor and researcher.
Tech-Pro was acquired by Roper Industries in March 2008. That same year, John and Matthew Putman founded Nanotronics Imaging, which includes Peter Thiel [3] as the 3rd director on the Board.
Putman has published over 30 papers and is an inventor on over 50 patent applications [4] filed in the U.S. and other countries for his work on manufacturing, automation, inspection, instrumentation, super resolution, and artificial intelligence. He is an expert in quantum computing and a founding member of The Quantum Industry Coalition. His groundbreaking inventions in manufacturing include the development of the world’s most advanced inspection instrument, which combines super resolution, AI, and robotics. He has lectured at the University of Paris, USC, University of Michigan, and The Technical University of São Paulo.
Along with his scientific and engineering work, Matthew Putman has produced several plays and films. Putman is an Artist-in-Residence for Imagine Science Films, which seeks to build relationships between scientists and filmmakers. He most recently produced the critically acclaimed film, Son of Monarchs which premiered at Sundance in February 2021 and was awarded the Sloane Prize. also published a book of poems, Magnificent Chaos, partly written during his battle with esophagal cancer in 2005 (AuthorHouse, 2011).
A jazz pianist and composer, he appears on the CDs Perennial (2008), Gowanus Recordings (577 Records, 2009), Telepathic Alliances (577 Records, 2017) and has played with jazz masters Ornette Coleman, Daniel Carter and Vijay Iyer. He has performed in several venues and festivals, including the Forward Festival. His most recent jazz album was released on in April 2021 with 577 records, featuring Michael Sarian. He has also published a book of poems, Magnificent Chaos, partly written during his battle with esophagal cancer in 2005 (AuthorHouse, 2011).
Matthew Putman serves on the Board of Directors of Pioneer Works and New York Live Arts. He is an Artist-in-Residence for Imagine Science Films, which seeks to build relationships between scientists and filmmakers.
Dean Lawrence Kamen is an American engineer, inventor, and businessman. He is known for his invention of the Segway and iBOT, as well as founding the non-profit organization FIRST with Woodie Flowers. Kamen holds over 1,000 patents.
Kim Eric Drexler is an American engineer best known for introducing molecular nanotechnology (MNT), and his studies of its potential from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was revised and published as the book Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992. He has been called the "godfather of nanotechnology".
Nanotechnology was defined by the National Nanotechnology Initiative as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). At this scale, commonly known as the nanoscale, surface area and quantum mechanical effects become important in describing properties of matter. The definition of nanotechnology is inclusive of all types of research and technologies that deal with these special properties. It is therefore common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to the broad range of research and applications whose common trait is size. An earlier description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabrication of macroscale products, also now referred to as molecular nanotechnology.
Ralph C. Merkle is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is one of the inventors of public-key cryptography, the inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on cryonics.
Raymond Kurzweil is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health technology, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.
Daniel Carter is an American free jazz musician who plays saxophone, trumpet, and flute.
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of June 2023, Thiel had an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion and was ranked 213th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The Gdańsk University of Technology is a technical university in the Wrzeszcz borough of Gdańsk, and one of the oldest universities in Poland. It has eight faculties and with 41 fields of study and more than 18 thousand undergraduate, as well as about 626 doctoral students. It employs 2768 people, including 1313 academic teachers.
Jaan Tallinn is an Estonian billionaire computer programmer and investor known for his participation in the development of Skype and file-sharing application FastTrack/Kazaa.
Alfred Yi Cho is a Chinese-American electrical engineer, inventor, and optical engineer. He is the Adjunct Vice President of Semiconductor Research at Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs. He is known as the "father of molecular beam epitaxy"; a technique he developed at that facility in the late 1960s. He is also the co-inventor, with Federico Capasso of quantum cascade lasers at Bell Labs in 1994.
Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new but also include older technologies finding new applications. Emerging technologies are often perceived as capable of changing the status quo.
A timeline of United States inventions encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Contemporary era to the present day, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Patent protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The history of nanotechnology traces the development of the concepts and experimental work falling under the broad category of nanotechnology. Although nanotechnology is a relatively recent development in scientific research, the development of its central concepts happened over a longer period of time. The emergence of nanotechnology in the 1980s was caused by the convergence of experimental advances such as the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981 and the discovery of fullerenes in 1985, with the elucidation and popularization of a conceptual framework for the goals of nanotechnology beginning with the 1986 publication of the book Engines of Creation. The field was subject to growing public awareness and controversy in the early 2000s, with prominent debates about both its potential implications as well as the feasibility of the applications envisioned by advocates of molecular nanotechnology, and with governments moving to promote and fund research into nanotechnology. The early 2000s also saw the beginnings of commercial applications of nanotechnology, although these were limited to bulk applications of nanomaterials rather than the transformative applications envisioned by the field.
Behrokh Khoshnevis is the President and CEO of Contour Crafting Corporation and the Louise L. Dunn Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC), where he has affiliations with the Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, Astronautics Engineering, Civil & Environmental Engineering and Industrial & Systems Engineering departments. He is the Director of the Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT) at USC. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow Member of the National Academy of Inventors and is a Fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science. He is also a Fellow member of the Society for Computer Simulation International, a Fellow member of the Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineering and a Fellow member of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. He is also a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fellow.
Transcendent Man is a 2009 documentary film by American filmmaker Barry Ptolemy about inventor, futurist and author Ray Kurzweil and his predictions about the future of technology in his 2005 book, The Singularity is Near. In the film, Ptolemy follows Kurzweil around his world as he discusses his thoughts on the technological singularity, a proposed advancement that will occur sometime in the 21st century when progress in artificial intelligence, genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics will result in the creation of a human-machine civilization.
The societal impact of nanotechnology are the potential benefits and challenges that the introduction of novel nanotechnological devices and materials may hold for society and human interaction. The term is sometimes expanded to also include nanotechnology's health and environmental impact, but this article will only consider the social and political impact of nanotechnology.
Nanopunk refers to an emerging subgenre of science fiction that is still very much in its infancy in comparison to its ancestor-genre, cyberpunk, and some of its other derivatives.
Timothy D. Sands is an American materials engineer who is the 16th president of Virginia Tech. Sands previously served as the acting president and as the provost of Purdue University.
Nanotronics Imaging is a nanotechnology startup in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. It has an office in Brooklyn, New York at New Lab and manufactures its devices in California.
George Grüner is a Hungarian-American physicist, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA.