Is Fred dead?!? Not in The Diner, where some things are eternal…
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You mention the guy who makes the world’s smallest motor and I’m thinking “I wonder if that was for the Feynman Prize.” Huh; guess so.
Feynman gave a famous talk, “There’s plenty of room at the bottom” where he announced the potential for nanotechnology to the world. To show he was serious about the talk he offered two prizes; a thousand dollars of his own money to the first person who made an electric motor that could fit in a cube 1/64th of an inch on a side, and the other for someone who could write the Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin.
The first prize was collected apparently by the fellow you saw, who used conventional methods. This annoyed Feynman, who was trying to encourage research into the small. The second prize wasn’t collected until after the year 2000. If memory serves, they actually wrote out A Tale of Two Cities, but at a print size small enough to qualify.
Your mention of “somebody’s grandma” brought something to mind. Someone tracked down the voice of Otis elevators. Figured you might be interested.
And I am! That’s great. Thanks, Hank.
Believe it or not, that’s one of my rotating morning alarms on my phone.