Small Wonder Of Science

The world’s tiniest guitar is about the size of a single blood cell, 20 times thinner than a human hair. Its strings can be plucked but are too small to be heard. Scientists at Cornell University carved the guitar out of crystalline silicon to demonstrate the possibilities of building devices at the microscopic level. The guitar is just 10 micrometers long. A micrometer is one-millionth of a meter. The strings are each about 50 nanometers wide. A nanometer is a billion times smaller than a meter. The guitar was made for fun but demonstrates a new technology that can be used to fabricate extremely small mechanical devices for a variety of scientific and industrial uses.