The grand ballroom of the boston Marriott had been packed with a standingroom-only crowd of several thousand materials scientists eager to hear Richard Smalley's evening plenary talk on "new devices and materials from carbon." Afterward, in a nearly empty meeting room at the hotel, the Rice University chemist looks tired and spent as he fields questions. Then suddenly he's revitalized; he leans forward and focuses intently. The conversation has swung to one of his favorite subjects: how nanotechnology will help save the world.

There are roughly 6 billion people on Earth, Smalley points out on this November night, and research aimed at producing better, cheaper, more efficient materials will be one key to feeding and housing that population as it soars toward an eventual steady state of 10 billion or more. But the limits to how strong, conductive and intricate a material can be "are set at the nanometer scale," he says. "The dream," says Smalley, "is to build with that level of finesse, to make it perfect down to the last atom." This capability, he contends, would bring smaller, more efficient batteries, stronger materials, and vastly improved and cheaper electronics.