Credit: Technology Review

We have become obsessed with the extreme. To be interesting, a tech­nology must be the fastest, the smallest, the biggest, the thinnest, the highest precision, or the lowest tolerance. We often invest immense resources in achieving these extremes. And while such work is essential to the progress of science and technology, its high cost has the unfortunate result that only a tiny fraction of the world can participate in it or benefit from the results.

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