As a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Israel Museum, they created a new exhibition space where they are displaying a not so common artifact: A Bible that is the size of a sugar crystal with the entire text from the Bible thanks to the power of nanotechnology.
In 2007, Scientists at the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute from the Haifa’s Technion- Israel Institute of technology had an idea to engrave the whole biblical contents on a surface that is smaller than a pin’s head. This exercise mimicked the ancient practice of stone engraving which was done back then, but this time in a more high tech manner. The point of the project was to “arouse public interest in nanotechnology”.
How did they go about it? Well they had a silicon “wafer” which was coated with a layer of gold that was less than a 100 atoms thick. Using a focused ion beam, they were able to engrave letters on the surface since it creates an indentation revealing the underlying silicon, which looks dark. Since the surrounding gold area is bright, you can be able to see the text. They were able to engrave 1.2 million letters from the Bible onto the “Nano” Bible in an hour & a half. It is of course impossible to see the contents in the Nano Bible and you have to use the electron microscope where it is magnified 10,000 times.
The exhibition at the museum where the Nano Bible is present is on a form of a time capsule format where people who visit it can see the progress from the 200 year old Dead Sea Scrolls to the present Nano Bible. To see a video of the process they took to make the Bible, check below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEKUabU5C6U]
Source: The Israel Museum
