How far can we push computing?

In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman gave a lecture titled 'There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom', arguing that physics allows manipulating matter at the atomic scale.

He claimed no physical law prevents writing the entire Encyclopædia Britannica on a pinhead or storing all human knowledge in a speck of dust.

Feynman’s ideas inspired decades of progress in miniaturization, proving that biology already achieves such feats—cells store genetic instructions in tiny DNA strands.

His vision set the stage for modern computing, where transistors, the tiny switches powering chips, shrank dramatically, enabling computers to evolve from room-sized machines to devices small enough to wear.

Feynman even offered $1,000 prizes to demonstrate these possibilities, one of which was claimed by an engineer who built a motor the size of a grain of sand using only a toothpick and a microscope.