I’ve been reading the nanotech book that Shay and Lesley gave me at bedtime, and it’s quite interesting. It talks about the problems arising engineering these small systems and the interactions between the quantum laws and mechanics and the macro world and more standard dynamics. It’s written by/for/with the editors of Scientific American and as such requires a relatively high degree of prerequisite knowledge and understanding. The title is “Understanding Technology” Isbn 0-446-67956-9 USD $13.

The tag line is “Science made accessible” and I don’t think it does what it says on the tin in this respect. It’s made accessible to people who have some basic physics / computer knowledge, but even for me, I’m feeling a bit pushed to understand it fully. I think I’ll leave it for the plane trip home, as inevitably the iPod and psp will run out of juice and I’ll have to revert to old tech.

I’m feeling a little deprived of books at the moment actually, so I’ll need to have a look on the Chinese version of Amazon, called Joyo. These books sell much cheaper than the western counterparts and is a good source of textbooks. I’ve bought some of Knuth’s famous “Art of computer programming” books for under 5 pounds, is dual language, and compared to Britain is brilliantly cheap. The local bookstore stocks some as well, so it’s useful for noting down the Chinese isbn, as it’s a different version of the book for the Chinese market (i.e. more cheaply produced), and getting it cheaper from the Internet.