Small is Beautiful: Challenges and Perspectives of Nano/Meso/Microscience

Abstract

This article gives a personal view on the development of our discipline, but also tries to elaborate some of the current and future trends to illustrate why "Small science" is at the core of the current scientific development of chemistry and physics. Topics such as the limits of 'small', new modes of self-organization, pattern recognition, self-repair, encoding of structures, and the appropriate handling of complexity are discussed along these lines.

Keywords: emergence; mesoscale; nanoscience; pattern recognition; small science.