While the world’s biggest football game is under way, someone will be awarded the world’s smallest trophy, created by Cornell nanotechnology specialists. The “Nano Bowl” contest, sponsored by PhysicsCentral -- an educational arm of the American Physical Society -- challenges entrants to create short videos explaining some aspect of the physics of football. The winner, to be announced on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 3, will receive a trophy made at the Cornell NanoScale Facility (CNF). The trophy is built around a silicon chip on which, like Russian nesting dolls, football fields nest inside one another, the largest about 12 millimeters long and the smallest only 2 microns (millionths of a meter) long. The winner also will receive $1,000 in normal-sized cash, and the video will be featured on the Physics Central Web site.
