Question: how do you rearange atoms? chemicals? genetical engenering?

Simone Sturniolo answered on 18 Jun 2013:

Well, personally, I don’t rearrange atoms myself – not “real” atoms at least. My work is with “virtual” atoms. I use a computer program to which I tell atoms positions in a material and that from them calculates the properties of that material. In this sense, I can put atoms however I want to, and the computer will give me an answer – or an error, if the position I choose is especially outrageous (it just happened to me today, because of a mistake).
In real life, of course, we can’t just put atoms however we want. First, because atoms are very small and hard to move around; second, because there are positions that are ‘uncomfortable’ and in which the atoms are not going to stay for long, just like you can’t put ten rubber balls balanced one on top of each other. When we want to create a new molecule, chemistry is usually the answer: if that molecule can be produced, someone is going to figure out how! Genetic engineering is something a bit different: it applies only to living beings. It’s the technique of building only one kind of molecule: DNA, the molecule that all living beings have in their cell and that decides everything about how they are made. So genetic engineers study how to manipulate and rearrange atoms – or better, groups of atoms – only in that special molecule!
But there are other methods too. For example, it is possible to move and rearrange atoms with tiny (and I DO mean REALLY TINY) metallic tips. Check on YouTube a video called “A Boy and his Atom”: it shows the smallest movie of the world, a stickman playing with a ball… entirely drawn with atoms, which were moved and rearranged in this way, frame by frame!