The talk Feynman gave is widely cited as the conceptual origin of nanotechnology, but many early nanotechnology researchers say it did not influence their own work and had not read it until much later; Taniguchi was the first to actually use the term nano technology, in 1974; and Drexler used the term again in 1981 without knowing of the earlier Taniguchi use, then went on to popularize it. Historians describe the status given to Feynman in the field as retroactively attached, to give nanotechnology a packaged history.
What would resolve this A settled disciplinary consensus on whether founding credit belongs to conceptual precedent, to terminological coinage, or to later independent popularization.
OpenHistory of TechnologyWikipedia contributors, History of Nanotechnology (Wikipedia)