A billion digits of Pi – experiments in ultra-microprinting with gold on sapphire
You can print extremely tiny text using the same techniques that are used to make semiconductor chips. Like so tiny that you can fit one billion digits of Pi on a 5″ square plate…
You can’t see the digits because they so tiny, but they are all there (I’ve checked). 40,000 digits per row * 25,000 rows. So many tiny digits.
Here is what it looks like under a high-power 1000x microscope…
Here is the upper-left corner zoomed in all the way…
See the “3.1515…”? Each pixel in this 3×5 font is 750 nanometers x 750 nanometers. At the limits of visible light wavelengths.
If you use gold as the ink and sapphire as the paper it will also last for a very, very long time.
This was so cool we felt like we needed to do something cool with it (besides making silicon chips that no one will ever look at). So we teamed up with the cool people at CW&T (the cool pen type-B people) to make a cool pocket sized viewer for viewing these microprints. It looks like this…
Cool, right?
There is a kickstarter where you can get one. As soon as you back, you will get a link where you can upload your own tiny 500×500 image and pick where you want it to go. It is like a tiny gold-on-sapphire time capsule to preserve the 1,000 cool images from 1,000 cool people. You can see a live zoomable online version of the cool stuff the cool people have uploaded so far here…
If you want to be a part of this then back the kickstarter here (1 day left)…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cwandt/pocket-fiche?ref=avhkql
If you want to buy one of the 1-billion-digit plates, leave a comment with your contact info (it will not be made public). We will probably charge $5,000 each (pretty cheap on a per-digit basis). Bring your own microscope (we can make recommendations, but it will not be cheap).
-josh
FAQ:
Q: Why?
A: We had to develop the lithology process to make semiconductor chips, and the tech is just so damn cool.
Q: But why Pi?
A: Because it doesn’t repeat, so it is *extremely* challenging. If you know what a GDS is and you are wondering how the hell this is possible, get in touch.
Q: But why gold and sapphire?
A: Pure gold does not oxidize and is resistant to almost all acids (but don’t dip it in iodine!), and it looks so cool. Pure sapphire has extremely high durability chemical stability, and it also looks so cool.
Q: Semiconductors?
A: Gotham Silicon is coming. But don’t tell anyone yet because it is a big secret.
Q: How did you make that cool viewer?
A: So cool, right?? Mostly leaflet JS, but with some tricks. Github here.