Scientists: We Built 'World's Smallest Violin'

Physicists at Loughborough University in the UK have laid claim to building what they call "the world's smallest violin." But as the BBC explains, it can't be played. In fact, it can't even be seen except with a microscope. "The finished piece is no larger than a speck of a dust," per a university release at Phys.org. The months-long project—explained in this video—is a demonstration of the university's nanolithography system, which allows the team to build and study structures that are mind-bogglingly small. The violin, for instance, is 35 microns long and 13 microns wide, and a micron is one-millionth of a meter. In other words, it would fit inside a human hair.

"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," says Kelly Morrison, head of the physics department. That research could lead to more efficient computers or new ways to harvest energy, he adds. The researchers chose to make a violin—or at least a replica of one—to play off the "world's smallest violin" line used to mock whiny people.

Playable instrument? No. But the tongue-in-cheek experiment "does make the scale of this technological advancement more tangible than talking in microns and nanometers," notes New Atlas. It also shows that the researchers have both a sense of humor and marketing savvy, the site adds. Morrison has a blog post that digs into the scientific particulars of the work. (More physics stories.)