Frank Swain is a science writer and blogger. He is based in the UK.
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Keep up to date with RSSTaking the art of small print to a whole new level, physicists at Stanford University have created the world's smallest lettering, just 1.5 nanometres tall:
Colin Barras reports in New Scientist:
The researchers wrote a computer program that works out how to arrange the carbon monoxide molecules such that they scatter electrons into waves of a particular shape. The software also demonstrated how varying the energy of the electrons could produce different shapes from the same pattern of molecules.
Technology
Comments
Reminds me of http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20090121
Requires a little knowledge of the unix system, where su will grant you privileges to preform commands as a system administrator (something that's not allowed for normal users).
..Yes, I'm a geek.
Posted by: D. Ebdrup | January 26, 2009 3:31 PM
They say that using this could allow information to be packed in smaller spaces, but I wonder if really small letters would be the most efficient way to do that?
Posted by: deep | January 26, 2009 11:49 PM
The boys and girls on the farm want you to know, Stamford, Connecticut is about 2,900 miles to the east of Palo Alto, California. The former is a minor city on the east coast of the U.S., the latter is the location of Leland Stanford's farm.
Posted by: Onkel Bob | January 27, 2009 2:18 AM
LOL, I wonder how many years I've been getting those two confused. Cheers, fixed!
Posted by: Frank the SciencePunk | January 27, 2009 10:51 AM