Long before the physics of nanotechnology, a dreamer’s dream sparked the world’s imagination

Known to most by his pen name, Dr. Seuss, Theodore Geisel lived a life in a magical world populated by unusual characters – characters who are not so refined that a dinner invitation he would decline, he once said with a wink, I think.

Like so many of us, I was raised with the bedtime stories of cats in hats and grinches that stole Christmas. Geisel’s imagination, it seems, had no bounds.

It should come as no surprise that on one dark evening, Geisel had an epiphany, which he put into words in a way that only the Seuss-master could produce. In 1954, he crafted Horton Hears a Who, a nothing-less-than brilliant glimpse into a world of the small. For those unfamiliar with nanotechnology, and many you are, reading about manipulating matter will take you very, very far.

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