'A Boy and His Atom,' the World's "Smallest" Movie

A movie with atoms as actors has been named by the Guinness World Records organization, as the "world's smallest movie." Called 'A Boy and his Atom,' the stop-action film was produced by IBM to introduce students to the world of mathematics and science, while highlighting IBM's own history of research.

Published

7 months ago

Categories

Science, Entertainment

Topics

Physics, Movies

Companies

International Business Machines Corporation

Transcript

It's the smallest movie ever made To make it visible to the human eye, the movie had to be magnified 100 million times by its creators at IBM. "A Boy and his Atom" is a story about a character named Atom and his adventures with a new atom friend. The movie features thousands of precisely placed atoms to create nearly 250 frames of stop-motion action. Using IBM's Scanning Tunneling Microscope, the researchers controlled a super-sharp needle along a copper surface to attract the atoms into position for each frame of video. (UPSOUND MOVIE) ...And while the movie is tiny, IBM says it will hopefully make GIANT strides in educating the public about atoms and the importance of nanoscale research.