This won't take a nanosecond: next up in the hype market: the nanofication of America.

The time has finally come for us all to start thinking seriously about nanotechnology, even though very few of us have any idea what it is. Nanotechnology, as The New York Times recently defined it, is "a broad term for technical advances in handling materials at the molecular level." This definition appeared in an article warning that nanotechnology might become the "son of Dot.Com" now that companies with no products and no profits, such as the Palo Alto concern Nanosys, are starting to go public.

Nanosys, founded in 2001, is seeking to raise up to $115 million to help it compete in a field that could reach the trillion-dollar level in the next decade. According to the Times, Nanosys has more than 200 patents and patent applications on file, has established ties with such companies as Intel and DuPont, and envisions a bright future as a developer of products used in memory chips, electronic displays and solar energy panels, to name just a few applications. That is very good, and we all wish them well.

But perhaps not all the startups in this fledgling industry will occupy such an impressive position in the nanotechnological universe. As the Times warned its readers: "If the dot-com era is any guide, the success of Nanosys will accelerate the trend of companies sticking the 'nano' prefix in their names or associating themselves with the field in advertising."

I, for one, have no doubt that the nanofication of American business is already well under way and that innumerable companies will soon begin attracting investors by assuring them that staggering nanotechnological breakthroughs in their corporate bailiwicks will soon occur. In the waning days of the dot-com era, all sorts of companies with no obvious connection to the Internet burned through investor cash by insisting that the "information highway," in and of itself, had the capacity to make their endeavors more efficient and profitable. Magazines that had never turned a nickel in the traditional market decided they could mint money in an online environment. Design firms with a ".com" after their name wove their spell over gullible investors; the terrain was littered with content providers offering pie in the sky to those who remained resolutely oblivious to the fact that the companies had no true business models. Since those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and since, for that matter, even those who can remember the past are probably condemned to repeat it, a nanotechnology bubble is inevitable. The only question is: How soon, and how much cash will go down the drain when it finally ruptures?

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Terrified of being dismissed as a Luddite, I am certainly not suggesting that all or even most nanotechnology public offerings will end in disaster (though, as The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, the record for biotechnology startups dating back to the 1980s is not particularly good). What I am suggesting is that at some point, the very term "nanotechnology" will become such an overpowering buzzword that every company worth its salt will start insisting that the astounding benefits of the technology can be applied to even the most mundane commercial activity. It is at that point that investors should head for the exits.

When will the bubble implode? Well, if history is any guide, the catastrophe will occur about six months after your local supermarket cashier starts ranting about the new technology. In the early phases, nanotechnology will be limited to industries where it seems to have some relevance: computers, medicine, airplanes, automobiles. But then we will start reading about coffee brewers that have made astonishing breakthroughs at the molecular level, perhaps by inserting the world's tiniest sensors in the foaming device.

Next, we will learn that nanotechnology can be used to buttress our decaying infrastructure, raise our children's SAT scores, maintain a pleat in our trousers. Nanotechnology buffs will insist that a revolution at the molecular level is enabling Hummers to get better gas mileage and soda makers to reduce the number of calories in their beverages. Companies will go public with nanotechnologically enhanced prosthetic devices, and surgeons will begin offering liposuction procedures utilizing the best surgical implements that nanotechnology has to offer. Immediately before the debacle occurs, someone will figure out a way to improve pets through nanotechnology, and the magazine Really Simple Nanotechnology will appear on the newsstands.

That's when it's time to get out.