The Nano Divide: Innovation Diffusion & Access Inequality

Nanotechnology promises real benefits — better medicine, cleaner water, smarter materials — but the article this simulation accompanies raises a governance question that rarely gets a concrete model: who gets access first, and why? This simulator couples a Bass diffusion model (how a population adopts a new technology through early adopters and peer imitation) with a Wright's-law learning curve (how unit price falls as cumulative production grows) across three income tiers. Watch the unit price fall as a grid of population units lights up tier by tier, and use the policy-lever sliders — the learning rate, the Bass coefficients, and the affordability gap — to see which interventions close the nano divide fastest and which widen it.