| A visit to the beach might mean building a sand castle. Can you imagine drawing a castle on a single grain of sand? An artist and a scientific researcher have joined forces to do just that. The artist first used a 100-year-old device to reflect images of real castles onto paper. He then traced these images onto the paper and sent them to the researcher. The researcher used technology similar to microscopic lasers to copy each image onto a grain of sand. The process took four years of trial and error to complete. The specific type of instrument could draw an extremely thin line. In fact, the line was only a tiny fraction of the width of a human hair. With the sand grain etched, the artist photographed the grain and enlarged the image. The technological marvel is a sight to see, and the applications for it are endless. |