Thinking On The Nano-Scale

It's an amazing time in the history of technology, isn't it? It seems every technogadget is getting smaller: cell phones, music players, computers, devices that do all three, your bank account as you purchase them in a vain attempt to keep up with the modern age. Of course, none of these wondrous inventions would be possible without our intrepid physicists working out ever better ways to build things on the nano-scale, such as tiny optical switches, flash memory cards, and even nanotube radios. They are pushing the limits of the infinitesimal for computers and structures made from just a few atoms or molecules.

Sure, sure, sure. Yawn. You material scientist physicist-types are amazing. Now go do something truly useful like, oh, how about making the world's smallest toilet:
http://www.desco.be/Desktopdefault.aspx?tabid=315

Yes, the nano-toilet is one of many nano-sculptures that startles the imagination and makes one wonder, "How is it physicists can have so much time on their hands?" Need to take a really, really small dump? Now you can, as long as your nano-crap is no larger than a red blood cell.

The nano-toilet joins the ranks of other completely useless gee-whiz nano-inventions, which includes the world's smallest guitar, smiley face, and Hebrew Bible.

But my personal preference is this lovely sculpture, based on Rodin's "The Thinker": http://www.nextnature.net/?p=883

I guess you have to think very small thoughts to be on par with this great sculpture, which can quite nicely tuck away into any pore in your body and wear those passing red blood cells as a toupee.

But I always felt sorry for The Thinker. I mean, just think about it, he's naked, he's in a slumped posture, and he's sitting on a freakin' irregular-shaped rock in full view of everyone. How uncomfortable is that? How the heck is one supposed to be pensive under those conditions? Is there any place a naked man in a slumped posture can sit comfortably and think about things?

Why, what better place for a nano-thinker to sit and think than a nano-toilet?




Images taken from HERE and HERE and ruthlessly altered in Photoshop.