World’s Smallest Book,‘Teeny Ted From Turnip Town’ isbn-978-1-894897-17-4

Simon Fraser University, April 9, 2007

The world’s first, nanoscale book was published as a work of fine art, April 9, 2007 by Robert Chaplin at the Nano Imaging Facility of Simon FraserUniversity. This book, complete with an International Standard Book Number (ISBN-978-1-894897-17-4), is entitled ‘Teeny Ted From Turnip Town’. It was written by Malcolm Douglas Chaplin and is a fable concerning the success of Teeny Ted, from Turnip Town, and his victory in the Turnip contest at the annual county fair.
It is at present the world’s smallest published book.

The Robert Chaplin - SFU nanobook project was produced using a focused-gallium-ion beam with the assistance of Dr. Li Yang, and Dr. Karen L. Kavanagh of Simon Fraser University, located at the summit of Burnaby Mountain, Burnaby, BC. The gallium beam has a minimum diameter of 7 nanometers, and was programmed to carve the space surrounding each letter of a book. The book was typeset in block letters with a resolution of 40 nanometers, and is made up of 30 micro-tablets, each carved on a polished piece of single crystalline silicon. The carving of the letter forms invokes the look of ancient cuneiform tablets, the undisputed root of publication. The entire collection of micro-tablets is contained within an area of 69 x 97 microns square, with an average size of tablet being 11 x 15 microns square.
At the time of production The ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ cited two records for very small books: The new testament of the King James Bible, (5 x 5 mm, MIT, 2001) and Chekhov’s ‘Chameleon’ (0.9 x 0.9 mm, Palkovic, 2002).‘Teeny Ted from Turnip Town’ had total size of less than 0.07 x 0.10 mm, an exquisite work of contemporary art, one of a kind.

http://nanoimaging.sfu.ca/

http://robertchaplin.ca/

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