When humanity is faced with really big things to worry about, it can be no little comfort to worry about matters minuscule. And so it has come to pass that the Prince of Wales — no small anxiety himself to supporters of cutting-edge science and new and exciting architecture — has expressed his disquiet about nanotechnology.

Ah yes, nanotechnology, quite. Something must be done. A recent survey by the Royal Society revealed that a mere 29 per cent of the population even recognises the term, the majority probably suspecting that it has something to do with Robin Williams. Indeed, it is possible that the Prince’s own fears may stem from the Orkan’s immortal cry of “Nanoo, nanoo”, accompanied, as it was, by the twisting of ears.

In fact, nanotechnology, as every schoolboy seems not to know, is the branch of technology that deals with dimensions of less than 100 nanometres. One nanometre equals one millionth of a millimetre, so we are talking small, really small, angels-on-pinheads type stuff. In lay prince’s terms, considerably smaller than the smallest of the family jewels.

Some of the implications of nanotechnology are, evidently, a good thing, be they medical applications or merely gizmos and gadgets. Others might be rather rum, not least, unforeseen chemical reactions and further interventions from Clarence House. Regardless, the moral of the story is that size may indeed matter. Nanotechnology may be diminutive, but it has acquired official status as the next big thing: parti- cularly in Hollywood, where the more minute the technology our hero faces, the more inflated his pay cheque becomes.

Which takes us to the nanobot domination scenarios popular in the more masochistic quarters of science. The Prince was at pains to emphasise that he was not losing any sleep over the matter of “grey goo”; the notion that the galaxy could be taken over by self-replicating robots, reducing it to gloop. This was just as well as the concept has even been abandoned by its creator, Eric Drexler, who popularised the term in his 1986 study, The Engines of Creation.

Dr Drexler may have reneged on the idea, but this was not before less substantial grey matter conceived of a myriad alternate goos: golden, or economic, goo; black, or terrorist, goo; pink goo, aka humanity; and green eco-goo. And now we are confronted by an outbreak of ermine goo: the unleashing of self-replicating royal pronouncements on progress.

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