What in the Whirled? Tiny, Floating Dumbbell Rotates 60 Billion Times Per Minute

Scientists crafted tiny silica "dumbbells" that are too small to be seen with the naked eye, spinning them faster than any other human-made object on Earth.

Credit: Tongcang Li/Purdue University

Spinning objects are hypnotic and fascinating, as last year's fidget-spinner craze overwhelmingly demonstrated. But even the fastest fidget spinner trails the new reigning champion of fast-whirling objects: a tiny dumbbell that can rotate 60 billion times per minute.

It's enough to make your head spin.

Spin doctors — er, researchers — recently created the nanoscale rotor and levitated it in a vacuum, blasting it with lasers to set it spinning. Their research, described in a new study, could help reveal how different substances respond under extreme conditions and how friction behaves in a vacuum, Tongcang Li, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, as well as electrical and computer engineering, at Purdue University, said in a statement. [The 18 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics]

Over the past decade, researchers have tested the limits — and broken records — for how fast human-made things can spin. In 2008, a motor the size of a matchbook clocked 1 million rotations per minute, Live Science previously reported. Then, in 2010, scientists set a new rotation record when they spun a slice of graphene at a dizzying 60 million spins per minute, Popular Science reported that year.

Ref-https://www.livescience.com/63139-fastest-spinner-nanodumbbell.html