As part of its yearlong 50th anniversary celebration, the Jerusalem-based Israel Museum will display the “Nano Bible,” the world’s smallest bible, an Israeli innovation created at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
The tiny bible will be displayed alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Aleppo Codex, a manuscript of the Jewish bible from 10th century C.E. The Nano Bible is a gold-coated silicon chip smaller than a pinhead. It is 0.04 square millimeters, and 0.00002 millimeters (20 nanometers) deep. The 1.2 million letters of the bible were written using a focused ion beam generator that shot gallium ions onto a gold surface covering a base layer of silicon.
Prof. Uri Sivan and Dr. Ohad Zohar of the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute developed the idea, and the engineers of the Technion’s Sara and Moshe Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center were responsible for the manufacturing of the chip and the development of the software that allows the engraving of the letters.
The Israel Museum will also exhibit a documentary on the creation of the Nano Bible and will enable the reading of the biblical text under a microscope.
Previously a nano sized New Testament developed by an Israeli company had been nominated for the Guinness Book of Records as the World’s Smallest Bible.
Jerusalem nano Bible company said it developed a chip smaller than five by five millimeters, which contains the original Greek version of the New Testament (Textus Receptus, or “received text” in Latin).
The tiny square chip, with each side measuring 4.76 millimeters, can be embedded inside watches and pendants with “infinite possibilities” in the jewellery industry, the company said.
“Our aim is to be able to mass produce it and cater to really every pocket. Because this application, the smallest Bible in the world, Jerusalem Nano Bible, can be applied to infinite possibilities in the jewelry industry,” said David Almog, who is in charge on the company’s marketing and sales department.
“We have used 0.18 micron technology so the width of each of these letters is 0.18 micron to create the smallest printed Bible in the world. In every one of these squares, which is about 1,000 of these squares on an eight inch silicone wafer, there is a little bit more than one thousand Bibles. What that means is that we have produced the smallest recorded printed New Testament ever in the world. And that is extremely significant,” said Russell Ellwanger whose company TowerJazz Semiconductor, provided the technical know-how for the production and manufacturing of the Nano Bible.
The product was validated by an academic scholar who determined that the Greek text on the chip presented to him via a microscope was indeed that of the 27 books of the New Testament.
For a peek inside the chip to see the bible, watch this video