13 Surprising Facts About The Microchips You’re Using To Read This

Computers: the thing you're definitely using to read this article. Or, we guess, a smartphone, which is just a computer in a phone if you (takes huge bong rip) really think about it, dude. Or, third option: it's the apocalypse, the electrical grid has collapsed, but before things went haywire, you printed out this article and are reading it on paper whilst wandering the desert. Weird choice, but we appreciate the dedication. 

Anyway, computers are powered by microchips. It's easy, in the 21st century, to joke about how computers in the mid-20th-century were the size of a garage. But “micro” does mean “small,” and it's taken a ridiculous amount of technological developments to get computers down to, say, the size of a laptop or smartphone. You know, the exact right size for you to be able to read this during your morning bathroom trip. And microchips are endlessly fascinating things.

There’s a metal used in microprocessors that melts so easily, it acts kind of like chrome mozzarella. Here’s the full story, plus 12 others: