Atom boy, IBM.
Way to take a seemingly simple concept–make a short film using atoms–and give it a creative spin to create a cool result.
IBM used atoms magnified more than 100 million times (that’s where the “seemingly” part of simple comes in) to create a quirky video that it posted to its YouTube channel Tuesday. The film, titled A Boy And His Atom, follows the short and sweet tale of a bouncy atom and his cheerful pal over the course of a minute and a half. The boy’s atom bounces, dances with him, turns into a trampoline and eventually floats past some clouds. You know, your typical buddy hangout session.
It’s an effort related to the idea of how IBM Research moves atoms to, as the video says, “explore the limits of data storage.” It involved moving atoms frame by frame to create “the world’s smallest film” and is reminiscent of Pong’s animation style. (You really can’t expect an experiment this delicate and complicated to look like a Terrence Malick film, can you?)
The short documentary that plays after the film explains how IBM pulled of the ambitious film project–which involved moving 5,000 atoms on a postage stamp-sized surface–and also how this effort is related to finding out how small you can make a magnet and still use it for data storage.
