Prizes Offered by Richard Feynman
A defining moment in the history of molecular-scale technology was a 1959 speech at the California Institute of Technology by Nobel Laureate physicist Dr. Richard P. Feynman. "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," he declared in his discussion of the possibilities of molecular-scale engineering. To spur work in that direction, he offered $1,000 prizes from his personal funds to the first person to construct a working electric motor 1/64 inch or less on a side, and to the first person to produce written text at 1/25,000 scale (the size required to print the entire Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin).
The motor prize was claimed in 1960 by an engineer who found a way to construct a very small motor using conventional mechanical techniques. Dr. Feynman had unfortunately set the size limits slightly too large to require breakthrough technology. He paid anyway. The printing challenge took longer; but in 1985 a Stanford University graduate student named Thomas Newman reproduced the first page of Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities, on a page measuring only 1/160 millimeter on a side (20 times smaller than the human eye can see), using electron beam lithography. Dr. Feynman paid that prize enthusiastically, since it had produced technological advance.