This book provides information to the state of art of research in nanotechnology and nano medicine and risks of nano technology. It covers an interdisciplinary and very wide scope of the latest fundamental research status and industrial applications of nano technologies ranging from nano physics, nano chemistry to biotechnology and toxicology. It provides information to last legislation of nano usage and potential social impact too. The book contains also a reference list of major European research centers and associated universities offering licences and master of nano matter. For clarity and attractivity, the book has many illustrations and specific inserts to complete the understanding of the scientific texts.

Writing a textbook is an undertaking that requires strong motivation, strong enough to carry out almost two years of solid work in this case. My motivation arose from three sources. The first was the ever-increasing pressure of our German administration on research institutions and individuals to divert time and attention from the pursuit of research into achieving politically determined five-year plans and milestones. The challenge of writing a textbook helped me to maintain my integrity as a scientist and served as an escape. A second source of motivation lay in my attempt to understand transport pr- esses at the solid/electrolyte interface within the framework of concepts developed for solid surfaces in vacuum. These concepts provide logical connections between the properties of single atoms and large ensembles of atoms by describing the physics on an ever-coarser mesh. The transfer to the solid/electrolyte interface proved nontrivial, the greatest obstacle being that terms such as surface tension denote different quantities in surface physics and electrochemistry. Furthermore, I came to realize that not infrequently identical quantities and concepts carry diff- ent names in the two disciplines. I felt challenged by the task of bringing the two worlds together. Thus a distinct feature of this volume is that, wherever approp- ate, it treats surfaces in vacuum and in an electrolyte side-by-side. The final motivation unfolded during the course of the work itself.

Fractal analysis is a method for measuring, analysing and comparing the formal or geometric properties of complex objects. In this book it is used to investigate eighty-five buildings that have been designed by some of the twentieth-century’s most respected and celebrated architects. Including designs by Le Corbusier, Eileen Gray, Frank Lloyd Wright, Robert Venturi, Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman, Richard Meier and Kazuyo Sejima amongst others, this book uses mathematics to analyse arguments and theories about some of the world’s most famous designs.