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A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie

IBM · demo · Watch on YouTube

Materials scienceDocumentaries & storytelling

What it is

IBM's record-setting stop-motion film made by moving individual carbon monoxide molecules with a scanning tunneling microscope, illustrating atomic-scale memory research.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Cited as a striking example of atom-level manipulation and STM imaging, including the ripples viewers ask about.

  • 1 people recommended it
  • 1 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2013, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “IBM made a stop-motion animated movie from individual atoms.”

    IBM stop-motion movie made from individual atoms.

    kens, 2016-06 · Recommendation · in “What are “actual pictures” of atoms actually pictures of?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: scanning tunneling microscope, stop-motion, single atoms, ibm research, nanotechnology

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