The Nano Engineer

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When I was in The Netherlands, I met a nano engineer.
I didn’t know that was a thing either.

Me and Nia were hitchhiking south toward Belgium.   This guy picked us up, and he was very friendly, and invited us to have a coffee with him.   He had to go past his house before heading out of town.
His name was Carel. As we were driving along, and chatting, he told us about his work.   He tried not to be too technical, so we could grasp what he was talking about, but it still sounded impossibly complicated and difficult.   Basically, he worked for a company that manufactured prototypes of medical nano machines.   Doctors would come to him and say “we want a nano-device that does such-and-such”, and he and his team of technicians would design and build it.

Nano machines are very tiny.   These little devices are like real life versions of those submarines that shrink down and go inside people’s veins in dodgy old sixties sci-fi movies.  Working on these things, the nano technicians have to use lasers, and tiny microscopic filaments.   When they are done, the machines they build are so small, you need a super powerful microscope to see them.
That sounded pretty unrewarding, working away for months to build a device that nobody can even see.
“Well, they do not look like much” Carel told us, “but when they are set to work inside the body of a patient they can do things like dismantle cancers, and clear blocked blood vessels.  So, my work is quite exciting.   We are helping to push forward the cutting edge of medicine.”

We got to Carel’s house and he invited us to seat ourselves on his patio, while he prepared coffee.
When he emerged from the kitchen, he handed us steaming cups of delicious, rich coffee, sat down, and lit a substantial joint.
We sat around, drinking our coffee and smoking, and talking about science for a while. Carel’s son came home from school.   He was a quiet, courteous fifteen year old, who looked like a smaller version of his father.   He deposited his school bag on the couch, and joined us on the patio for a few minutes to smoke some dope, then excused himself and went off to do his home work.
We finished our coffee, and we all climbed into Carel’s car again and headed out to the highway.
“I suppose you find it strange,” our host said, smiling, “a scientist who smokes drugs. But my job is quite stressful, and I find marijuana is very calming for me. When you are constructing machines on the microscopic level, you need very steady hands.”

 
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Exiled - Chiang Mai, Thailand
4:20 Friday