Jürgen Altmann, "Military Uses of Nanotechnology and Nanoethics"

From the 2009 Nanoethics Graduate Education Symposium, part of the first annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies (S.NET, http://www.thesnet.net/). See also http://depts.washington.edu/ntethics/

Jürgen Altmann is a professor of experimental physics at the University of Dortmund, Germany (Habilitation). He is a co-founder of the German Research Association for Science, Disarma­ment and International Security (FONAS) and a deputy speaker of the Working Group on Physics and Disarmament of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG, the learned society of physicists in Germany). He also founded the Bochum Verification Project (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) which does research into the potential of automatic sensor systems for co-operative verifica­tion of disarmament and peace agreements. Dr. Altmann studies military uses of microsystems technologies and of nanotechnology, with a view towards pre­ventive arms control. Recent projects have analyzed potential new technologies for non-lethal weapons, and uninhabited military systems. He teaches about the relationship of natural science, armament and disarmament and has co-authored a corresponding text book for students of peace and conflict research.