Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
Is Fred dead?!? Not in The Diner, where some things are eternal...
Become a member.
Tired of the toxicity of social media? Why not join Ricochet for just $5/month? Think of it as an online bar. Come in, have a drink, hang out, say whatever you want. But don’t badger, bully, or berate the other drinkers. That's our only rule.
James Lileks
Discussion (9)
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
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.
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Your mention of "somebody's grandma" brought something to mind. Someone tracked down the voice of Otis elevators. Figured you might be interested.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Believe it or not, that's one of my rotating morning alarms on my phone.
CONTRIBUTOR
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
And I am! That's great. Thanks, Hank.
You're seeing five of nine comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.