SUMMARY

The chapter's own bullet-point summary condenses the whole unit into short, stand-alone facts. On physics as a foundation: salient physics principles covered across the higher-secondary syllabus are the foundation for technology breakthroughs, and physics itself is the basic building block for science, engineering, technology and medicine. On nanoscience: it is the science of objects with typical sizes of 1-100 nm ('nano' meaning one-billionth of a metre, 10^-9 m), while nanotechnology is the technology of designing, producing, characterising and applying nano-structural materials; a solid particle under 100 nm is a 'nano solid', and once its size exceeds 100 nm it becomes a 'bulk solid', with the nano form typically showing strikingly different properties from its bulk counterpart, governed by quantum-confinement and surface effects; nanoscale structures existed in nature long before laboratories began studying them; there are two ways of preparing nanomaterials, the top-down and bottom-up approaches; and nanoparticles carry a major concern because their dimensions match those of biological molecules like proteins, letting them adsorb onto living-organism surfaces, enter tissues and fluids, cross cell membranes, and (if inhaled) reach the blood and organs such as the liver and heart. On robotics: it is an integrated study of mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, computer engineering and science; a robot is a mechanical device with electronic circuitry programmed to perform a specific task, built mainly from sensors, power supplies, control systems, manipulators and software; its key components are the power conversion unit, actuators, electric motors, pneumatic air muscles, muscle wires, piezo/ultrasonic motors, sensors, and robot locomotion; the six main types of industrial robot are Cartesian, SCARA, Cylindrical, Delta, Polar and Vertically articulated; six-axis robots suit arc welding, spot welding, material handling and machine tending; artificial intelligence aims to bring human-like behaviour to robots; robot bodies are mostly aluminium and steel; and robots carry many advantages (cost, tirelessness, precision, strength, extreme-environment tolerance) alongside real disadvantages (no emotion/empathy, unemployment risk, inability to handle unexpected situations). Applications range from outer space (Mars exploration) to household cleaning to industrial welding/cutting/packing/hazardous-material handling to nanorobots still in development. On medicine and fundamental physics: the development of medical technology has tracked the evolution of physics discovery for discovery; recent medical technology includes virt …