If you blew up your typical computer processor to the size of new york city, each transistor would be about 4cm long, and every building wall, sidewalk edge, and street line would have to be accurate to the nearest milimeter.
A billion seconds ago, it was 1960, and a billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive. I get to use an atomic force microscope for one lab to study objects a billion times smaller than me, and map fuel injection and dyno the car in another.
This semester I will use an atomic force microscope to spell out "IU Sucks" using individual atoms to form the
letters.
Oh, and
this machine can write the entire library of congress on a 3x5 notecard.
Nanotechnology and automotive engineering are entire opposite ends of the spectrum, and I love them both.