London, Ont. scientist builds 'world's smallest snowman'
Nonfabrication lab at Western University makes snowman 50 times thinner than a human hair
There was no magic involved in creating a tiny snowman that is smaller than a human hair, says an Ontario research scientist who describes his jolly holiday creation as the world's smallest.
📷 The World’s Smallest Snowman stands less than 3 microns tall. The snowman was fabricated from three... <a href="https://t.co/fbEtOPoCnz">https://t.co/fbEtOPoCnz</a>
—@WesternNanofabTodd Simpson, who works in the Western Nanofabrication Facility at Western University in London, Ont., created his minuscule snowman out of tiny silica spheres that are less than one micron in diameter.
That's quite small, considering a typical fine hair is about 50 microns in diameter, explained Simpson.
He stumbled upon the snowman idea back in 2005, when a stack of three spheres emerged from a mistake during one of his experiments.
"I came across this little stack of three that looked like a little snowman, so I put a face and arms on him with the annotation feature — I just drew them on," he said. "We actually used it as a Christmas card."
You can even see his button nose! Introducing the world's smallest snowman
—@takahojThen he used instruments to give the snowman actual arms and a nose. Next, he carved out a face. The intricate construction took just a few seconds, according to Simpson.
"It requires some pretty sophisticated instruments and a lot of experience but it's actually quite easy," he said. "I think the arms took about 10 seconds each and the nose was two or three seconds."