The world’s smallest violin cannot actually be used for a woeful dirge to mock the ceaseless complaints of self-absorbed individuals as it does not come with a bow and even if it did the strings on both are fake. It’s because the “violin” is actually essentially an image measuring 35 microns long and 13 microns wide – half the width of a human hair – created in a materials lab at Loughborough University as a proof of concept of a major breakthrough in nanolithography, the BBC reports.
The cheeky joke worked and here the media’s covering what appears to be a major advancement.
“Our nanolithography system allows us to design experiments that probe materials in different ways, using light, magnetism, or electricity, and observe their responses,” said Loughborough physics department chair Professor Kelly Morrison. “Once we understand how materials behave, we can start applying that knowledge to develop new technologies, whether it’s improving computing efficiency or finding new ways to harvest energy. But first, we need to understand the fundamental science and this system enables us to do just that. A lot of what we’ve learned in the process has actually laid the groundwork for the research we’re now undertaking.”