(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
It's the world's smallest record. You can't see it with the naked eye. But it can can still play a song like a regular record!
I read about this earlier this year in the NME. Their piece, which you can check out here, hipped me to a group of scientists in Denmark who have crafted the world's smallest vinyl record. How small is it, you ask? It measure 15 by 15 micrometers, and is a scant 65 nanometers deep. And I realize you're probably not a scientist, so I should probably define those terms. A micrometer is one thousanth of a millimeter. And a nanomter is one billionth of a meter.
That's really, really small.
How small? According to scientist Nolan Lassaline from the Technical University of Denmark, the record they created can fit into the groove of a regular-sized vinyl record. Hence the whole "can't see it with the naked eye" comment I made up above. Which leads to this: if it's so small that it can't be seen, it must be so small that it can't be heard. So what the hell song is on this tiny-ass record, you ask?
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"
Behold! Scientists Have Pressed the World's Smallest Record
The NME piece, which pulls from this report from EDM, shares a quote from Professor Peter Nøggild. The Professor said: “while this record is of course a little bit of Christmas fun, it’s also a very serious exercise for something that is important to our research.” This is all about practicing precision on a nano scale, which could lead to progress in fields like medicine and manufacturing.
The scientists were good enough to produce a five minute video outlining the process. You can check that out below. I have a pretty decent collection of lesser-known records from over the years. I wonder if they'll sell theirs to me?
