TOKYO - Japanese scientists say they have used cutting-edge technology to create a noodle bowl so small it can be seen only through a microscope.
Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao said Thursday he and his students at the University of Tokyo used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter 1/25,000 of an inch in a project aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology.
Nanotubes are tube-shaped pieces of carbon, measuring about one-ten-thousandth of the thickness of a human hair.
Carbon nanotubes are being explored for a wide range of uses in electronics and medicine because their structure endows them with powerful physical properties such as a strength greater than steel.
The ramen bowl experiment included a string of "noodles" that measured one-12,500th of an inch in length, with a thickness of one-1.25 millionth of an inch.
