Country United States First awarded 1993 | Presented by Foresight Institute | |
Awarded for Experimental and theoretical advancements in nanotechnology research Official website www.foresight.org/prize | ||
The Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology is an award given by the Foresight Institute every year for significant advances in nanotechnology. It is named in honor of physicist Richard Feynman, whose 1959 talk There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom is considered to have inspired and informed the start of the field of nanotechnology.
The prize was established "to recognize researchers whose recent work has most advanced the field toward the achievement of Feynman's vision for nanotechnology: molecular manufacturing, the construction of atomically precise products through the use of molecular machine systems."
The Foresight Institute also offers the Feynman Grand Prize, a $250,000 award to the first persons to create both a nanoscale robotic arm capable of precise positional control, and a nanoscale 8-bit adder, conforming to given specifications. The Grand Prize is intended to stimulate the field of molecular nanotechnology in the same way as similar historical prizes such as the Longitude prize, Orteig Prize, Kremer prize, Ansari X Prize, and two prizes that were offered by Richard Feynman personally as challenges during his 1959 There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom talk.
The Foresight Institute has also offered several other awards. The Prize in Communication for journalism and outreach efforts which promote public understanding of molecular nanotechnology was awarded from 2000 to 2007, and a Government Prize to recognize government officials was awarded in 2005. A Distinguished Student Award for graduate and undergraduate students was awarded from 1997 to 2007, and resumed in 2012.
Feynman prize winners
The prize was first given in 1993. Before 1997, one prize was given biennially. From 1997 on, two prizes were given each year in theory and experimental categories.