''A Boy and His Atom'' is a 2013
stop-motion animated short film released on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
by
IBM Research
IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...
. One minute in length, it was made by moving
carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...
molecule
A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioch ...
s with a
scanning tunneling microscope
A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. ...
, a device that magnifies them 100 million times. These two-atom molecules were moved to create images, which were then saved as individual frames to make the film.
The movie was recognized by the ''
Guinness Book of World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
'' as the World's Smallest Stop-Motion Film in 2013.
The scientists at
IBM Research – Almaden who made the film are moving atoms to explore the limits of data storage because, as data creation and consumption gets bigger, data storage needs to get smaller, all the way down to the atomic level. Traditional silicon transistor technology has become cheaper, denser and more efficient, but fundamental physical limitations suggest that scaling down is an unsustainable path to solving the growing Big Data dilemma. This team of scientists is particularly interested in starting on the smallest scale, single atoms, and building structures up from there. Using this method, IBM announced it can now store a single bit of information in just 12 atoms (current technology takes roughly one million atoms to store a single bit).
Creation
![Carbon-monoxide-3D-vdW](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Carbon-monoxide-3D-vdW.png)
''A Boy And His Atom'' was created by a team of
IBM scientists – together with
Ogilvy & Mather
Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based advertising agency, agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging wit ...
, IBM's longstanding advertising agency – at the company's
Almaden Research Center
IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...
in
San Jose, California
San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...
.
Using a
scanning tunneling microscope
A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. ...
,
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...
molecules were manipulated into place on a copper
substrate with a copper needle at a distance of 1 nanometer.
They remain in place, forming a bond with the substrate because of the extremely low temperature of 5 K (, ) at which the device operates.
The
oxygen
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as wel ...
component of each molecule shows up as a dot when photographed by the scanning tunneling microscope, allowing the creation of images composed of many such dots.
The team created 242 still images with 65 carbon monoxide molecules. The images were combined to make a stop-motion film.
Each frame measures 45 by 25
nanometer
330px, Different lengths as in respect to the molecular scale.
The nanometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: nm) or nanometer (American and British English spelling differences#-re ...
s.
It took four researchers two weeks of 18-hour days to produce the film.
The graphics and sound effects resemble those of early video games. "This movie is a fun way to share the atomic-scale world," said project leader
Andreas J. Heinrich
Andreas J. Heinrich is a physicist working with scanning tunneling microscopy, quantum technology, nanoscience, spin excitation spectroscopy, and precise atom manipulation. He worked for IBM Research in IBM Research - Almaden, Almaden for 18 yea ...
. "The reason we made this was not to convey a scientific message directly, but to engage with students, to prompt them to ask questions."
In addition, the researchers created three still images to promote ''
Star Trek Into Darkness
''Star Trek Into Darkness'' is a 2013 American science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof. It is the 12th installment in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and the sequel to t ...
''—the
Federation
A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...
logo, the starship ''
Enterprise
Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to:
Business and economics
Brands and enterprises
* Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company
* Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company
* Enterpris ...
'', and a
Vulcan salute
The Vulcan salute ("🖖") is a hand gesture popularized by the 1960s television series ''Star Trek''. It consists of a raised hand with the palm forward and the thumb extended, while the fingers are parted between the middle and ring fin ...
.
Reaction
Guinness World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
certified the movie as The World's Smallest Stop-Motion Film ever made.
The film was accepted into the Tribeca Online Film Festival and shown at the New York Tech Meet-up and the World Science Festival. The film surpassed a million views in 24 hours, and two million views in 48 hours, with more than 27,000 likes. As of November 2022, the film has over 21 million views and over 650,000 likes.
Implications
While the film was used by the researchers as a fun way to get students interested in science, it grew out of work that could increase the amount of data computers could store. In 2012, they demonstrated that they could store a
bit
The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
of computer memory on a group of just 12 atoms instead of a million, the previous minimum.
If it became commercially viable, "You could carry around, not just two movies on your
iPhone," Heinrich said in a companion video about the film's production, "you could carry around every movie ever produced."
[''Moving Atoms'', at 2:55.]
See also
* ''
Teeny Ted from Turnip Town
''Teeny Ted from Turnip Town'' (2007), published by Robert Chaplin, is certified by ''Guinness World Records'' as the world's smallest reproduction of a printed book. The book was produced in the Nano Imaging Laboratory at Simon Fraser University ...
'', the "world's smallest book" which requires an electron microscope to be read
References
External links
*
*
*
IBM researchers make world's smallest movie using atoms (w/ video)at Phys.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boy And His Atom
2013 animated films
2010s animated short films
2013 films
Experiments
IBM
Individual physical objects
Nanotechnology
Scanning probe microscopy
2010s English-language films