Scientists create the 'world's smallest violin'
A team of scientists have created the 'world's smallest violin' - which is tinier than a speck of dust and needs a microscope to see it!The micro-violin was created using nanotechnology by a team at Loughborough University.It measures 35 microns long and 13 microns wide - a micron is one millionth of a metre - for comparison a human hair is around 17 to 180 microns wide.Unfortunately the tiny violin is just an image and not a playable instrument, so it cannot be officially confirmed as the world's smallest violin, the university said.
The tiny violin was created to test the abilities of the university's new nanolithography system, which allows researchers to build and study tiny structures."Though creating the world's smallest violin may seem like fun and games, a lot of what we've learned in the process has actually laid the groundwork for the research we're now undertaking," said Professor Kelly Morrison, Head of the Physics department at Loughborough University."Our nanolithography system allows us to design experiments that probe materials in different ways – using light, magnetism, or electricity – and observe their responses."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," she said.
How did they make it?
To create the violin the researchers coated a tiny chip with two layers of gel-like material called a resist, before placing it under a nano-sculpting machine.Next the machine uses a heated, needle-like tip to "write" very precise patterns on the nanoscale - in this case a violin shape - in a process called thermal scanning probe lithography.After that a thin layer of platinum was poured into the carved out pattern to leave behind the finished piece.The whole process takes around three hours, but the research team's final version took several months to make, as they tested different techniques to get the best result.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Return of white storks to the UK described as 'emblem' for nature recovery
White storks, once common in Britain, disappeared centuries ago due to hunting and habitat loss, but conservationists are working to reintroduce them. A reintroduction project in southern England, started in 2016, uses rescued storks to establish breeding colonies and attract wild birds. The Knepp Estate in West Sussex, which has been "rewilded" since 2000, provides a habitat where storks thrive due to healthy soils, diverse insect life, and suitable nesting trees. The first chicks were born in 2020, and in 2024, at least six birds born at Knepp returned from migration to nest in the colony, indicating a healthy ecosystem. The success at Knepp demonstrates that habitat restoration can lead to the return of species, with white storks serving as an "emblem for nature recovery" and positively impacting other wildlife.
BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Great Exhibition Road Festival: What is the weirdest thing in the universe?
London's Exhibition Road will close to traffic this weekend as the famous museums and institutions of South Kensington combine for the Great Exhibition Road the series of free events taking place along the street, three researchers affiliated with Imperial College London (ICL) will take to the stage to try to answer one small question - what's the weirdest thing in the universe? For ICL research fellow Mariana Carrillo Gonzalez, the answer is to be found far away from our own planet."My object is black holes," she holes are regions of space where matter has collapsed in on itself, meaning they have such strong gravity that not even light can escape there's a key problem with them for scientists, explains Mariana."We still have no clue how they work."We can't observe them, we just observe the effects of a black hole. We observe the light that goes around the black hole and we observe how it deforms space and how things move... but we really can't see it because there's nothing that can escape from a black hole."We can prove they are there, we just have no idea what's inside," she adds."I think that's just a very weird thing." Nevertheless, Rita Ahmadi argues her research specialism is even more bizarre - "Quantum physics, by which I mean the physics of subatomic particles."They have behaviours that are different from the classical physics that you see around yourself, so the rules are different," the postdoctoral researcher rules include that "they can be observed in two different states at the same time, which is called superposition", while they also have an unusual problem when trying to observe them as "any interaction with a quantum system changes the state of the quantum system".Rita says such peculiarities mean "we know that the mathematics of quantum mechanics work properly so we know that the model works... but still we cannot make sense of that".Even so, quantum science is still seen as hugely important for the future."My research is quantum computing and I'm building devices out of that even without understanding if it makes sense." The other researcher taking part is Fernando Ernesto Rosas De Andraca whose area of expertise is another one full of conundrums."I took human consciousness as the weirdest thing I can think of," he says."Our best guess is that consciousness is somehow generated by the brain but most people would argue that single neurons are not conscious."So you have these little parts that are not conscious, you put them together and they are conscious and that's very strange."He also points to other arguments such as "the only thing you cannot doubt is your consciousness, but at the same time consciousness is this thing that nobody else can see so everybody else can doubt it".Elaborating further, Fernando brings up artificial intelligence (AI), declaring it as something he has become "completely obsessed" with."Most people believe that current AI systems are not conscious... but I think most people agree that there is no fundamental limits to say it will never be conscious so then the question is at one point it might become so," he says."We then get into a different arena that we have to be concerned about things like creating a system that can suffer." The reason for such existential arguments is the festival, which seeks to celebrate science and the arts for people of all ages through activities like insect yoga, quantum discos and robotics."We're always trying to find different and creative ways of exploring some of the topics that we study at Imperial," says James Romero, who is one of the festival organisers for the university."In this case it's challenging the researchers to tweak the public lecture format into a different format and introducing a competitive element into it."Once the three researchers have presented their arguments, a vote will be held with those in the crowd deciding which phenomena should be considered the weirdest in the universe."We thought that the researchers might be too polite to be competitive but clearly that's not necessarily the case," says James, having listened to their arguments."I came from Oxford," replies Rita. "I take debates very seriously."The Weirdest Object in the Universe debate is free to attend and will take place in the Sir Alexander Fleming Building at Imperial College London at 15:30 BST on Saturday.
BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Birmingham prehistoric giants exhibition set for summer opening
An exhibition featuring life-sized 3D models and partial skeletons of giant prehistoric animals will open this developed by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, will display animals that roamed the Earth after the extinction of the dinosaurs 66m years them will be the Otodus megalodon, known as the mightiest shark of all time, the woolly mammoth, and the Gigantopithecus blacki – an Asian primate the size of about three exhibition will open at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on 2 August before travelling to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh in January. Visitors will be able to learn about the processes behind palaeontology, including the methods around fossil discovery and said there would also be immersive projections to transport audiences the natural habitat of the colossal lifeforms. 'Inspiring installation' They said the exhibition served as a "poignant reminder of nature's fragility" and the urgent need to protect Mensah and Sara Wajid, co-chief executives of Birmingham Museums Trust, said the "inspiring installation" captured the imagination with its "monumental scale" and delivered a vital message about Nick Fraser, keeper of natural sciences at National Museums Scotland, said the exhibition helped to shine a light on creatures which existed in the "relatively neglected" period since the dinosaurs' extinction. Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
