# How small is the smallest microchip? How large are vaccine needles? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 20, 2021, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218 "2021-08-20T14:07:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/41 "2021-08-22T12:30:15Z")
> [@tampora](#): > > Semantics compels me to say the smallest a microchip can be is 0.000001 meters. Any less, and it becomes a nanochip. Words have multiple meanings. “Micro”, in “microchips”, just means “very small”, not specifically “10^-6”. It’s the same reason why electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength of a few centimeters is called “microwaves”, because those are very small as radio waves go. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/42 "2021-08-22T13:14:03Z")
The idea that a microchip can be inserted into someone with a 22-25 gauge needle (btw, the higher the gauge, the thinner the needle) is preposterous, believable only by simple, gullible minds. The government is using the chip/vaccine conspiracy as a diversionary tactic, diverting attention from the true delivery method of their diabolical scheme: _peppermints_. The chips are not being _injected_, they are being _ingested_. The bowl of peppermint candies next to the vaccine injection stalls have micro-chip fillings. I know this is factual. I was driving through downtown the other day and witnessed people babbling incoherently, wearing dirty clothes, living in cardboard boxes on the sidewalk. These are obviously post-peppermint chip ingested victims. The chips transmogrify victims into murderous zombie-like drones, capable of being controlled by a super-secret sub-agency of the NSA. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/43 "2021-08-22T13:54:47Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Well, if there are microchips on the outside of a syringe, surely nefarious government scientists can make sure they stick firmly enough so that when the needle goes in, chips are embedded in the muscle for later identification and tracking purchases. So _that’s_ why people are made magnetic! Brilliant! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/44 "2021-08-22T14:10:56Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Aren’t those doggie chips embedded in a place like the ear with less flesh in the way and not very deep? Usually just under the skin of the right shoulder so they know where to start scanning a stray. Originally the borosilicate covering was inert and the chip could migrate, either down the leg of along the back, sometimes quite a way. Now a plastic layer stimulates the body to wall it off with scar tissue so it stays put. Either way, the ‘grain of rice’ size is an exaggeration. It is a fair bit longer and twice the diameter. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/45 "2021-08-22T17:22:41Z")
Here’s an objection I’ve never seen raised. The microchips are too small to be seen, by definition. But the vaccine comes in vials of 5-6 doses. How does the government know the chips are evenly distributed, one to a dose? Maybe one person is getting two and the next person isn’t getting one at all. Maybe they all settle to the bottom and nobody gets one. Isn’t it awfully careless of the government to go to so much trouble to invent the world’s smallest microchip and then not be sure they’re implanted in everybody? ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/46 "2021-08-22T17:30:51Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Here’s an objection I’ve never seen raised. > > The microchips are too small to be seen, by definition. But the vaccine comes in vials of 5-6 doses. How does the government know the chips are evenly distributed, one to a dose? Maybe one person is getting two and the next person isn’t getting one at all. Maybe they all settle to the bottom and nobody gets one. Isn’t it awfully careless of the government to go to so much trouble to invent the world’s smallest microchip and then not be sure they’re implanted in everybody? - They’re in the syringe, silly. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/47 "2021-08-22T17:38:04Z")
What, like a Pez dispenser? ---
**Author:** ![abcdefghij](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/43a26b/32.png) [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/48 "2021-08-22T17:53:57Z")
There are no microchips in a PEZ dispenser. Those are full of spiders. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/49 "2021-08-22T19:39:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > What, like a Pez dispenser? No, that’s not how it works. I have been privy to some secret information and can divulge a little bit about how this actually works. After the syringe is loaded with COVID vaccine, the microchip is inserted into the needle by pushing the needle into a top-secret device supplied by the CIA called the Microchip Insertion Module for Injection (MIMI) which inserts the chip. The syringes themselves are also provided by the CIA and will not operate if the microchip is not present in the needle tip or if it has a fault. Instead, an attempt to perform an injection without the microchip will send an alert to CIA Headquarters via special detection circuitry in the syringe, which transmits a warning called the Microchip Exception or Obstruction Warning (MEOW) and the CIA will respond with attack helicopters. Thus all injections are guaranteed to implant working microchips. If you doubt this, I ask you whether you have ever actually seen a syringe being prepared for a COVID vaccine injection. I thought not. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/50 "2021-08-22T21:25:55Z")
None of this elaborate micro-machinery is necessary. The government can forcibly vaccinate you by sending spike protein pulses through your cellphone. And with 5G, you can get two doses simultaneously. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/51 "2021-08-22T22:22:16Z")
> [@tampora](#): > > Semantics compels me to say the smallest a microchip can be is 0.000001 meters. Any less, and it becomes a nanochip. Only if you define the unit of a chip as a meter. > [@Melbourne](#): > > .0000001 inches. The microchip was an American development. Semiconductor people always use metric. We’re not all dumb. Not even in Texas. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/52 "2021-08-22T22:23:14Z")
You are incorrect, my friend, and I assure you that my information comes from the most highly placed sources in the CIA. The MIMI apparatus for injecting the tracking microchip, and the aforementioned MEOW warning system for detecting vaccines that may be missing the microchip, are all part of an overall massive CIA project to track all Americans 24x7 by using Covid vaccinations as a pretext. It has been secretly funded as the Covid Abetted Tracking project, or Project CAT. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/53 "2021-08-23T00:34:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Semiconductor people always use metric. We’re not all dumb. Not even in Texas. The microchip was named for the size of it’s external dimensions, not for it’s semiconductor feature size. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/54 "2021-08-23T02:09:46Z")
> [@abcdefghij](#): > > There are no microchips in a PEZ dispenser. Of course not. That’s what I’ve been saying. The PEZ dispensers should be used for the vaccine. [Nobody would refuse](https://www.google.com/search?q=pez+dispenser&newwindow=1&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk01JHeQSiMW0GcjGwmrQ10Jg1EJk7A%3A1629684534719&source=hp&biw=1080&bih=1767&ei=NgMjYc_QKeeawbkPioK2iA0&oq=pez+d&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAxgAMggIABCABBCxAzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDoECCMQJzoLCAAQgAQQsQMQgwFQlwhYpRlg_SJoAXAAeACAAWOIAdcDkgEBNpgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1n&sclient=img)! ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/55 "2021-08-23T02:23:43Z")
Maybe an oral vaccine could be developed. “Open wide! He-e-ere comes the train – choo choo!” ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/56 "2021-08-23T02:32:43Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > The microchip was named for the size of it’s external dimensions, not for it’s semiconductor feature size. Not convinced this works either. The vast majority of chip dies are a few millimetres on a side. Big dies up to a centimetre on a side. When the term microchip was invented all wire bonding was done by hand, and the die was large enough to allow a human with a microscope to see the bonding and perform it. There is no unit, metric or imperial that makes sense with a _micro_ prefix. I don’t think _micro_ referred to a unit of anything. More likely a contraction of _microscopic_. It is fun to disassemble a credit card. When I last did this the actual chip inside was surprisingly large. Being a mixed mode chip, and manufactured to a low price, it is not much of a surprise that it would be made using quite old fabrication technology. Things may have improved since I last did this. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/57 "2021-08-23T02:46:15Z")
I first heard of “routine microchip implantation of newborns” in the 1980s - in other words, that heel stick done on newborns to test them for PKU and other metabolic diseases is actually the implantation of a microchip. I didn’t believe it then, and have had several occasions to ask OB nurses about it. They assured me that it was not true, although I already knew that. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/58 "2021-08-23T05:49:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Words have multiple meanings. “Micro”, in “microchips”, just means “very small”, not specifically “10^-6”. And note how “mega-” has been used to mean “anything really really big”. (ETA: My doctor pointed out to me that 1000 mg of acetaminophen, a typical dosage, was in fact _one gram_. I corrected him to suggest that it was only one kilomilligram.) ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/59 "2021-08-23T06:07:37Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The microchips are too small to be seen, by definition. But the vaccine comes in vials of 5-6 doses. How does the government know the chips are evenly distributed, one to a dose? The microchips are tiny and cheap, and probably have an 80% failure rate. But each vial of vaccine contains tens of thousands of them, so each dose of vaccine contains at least several hundred that get shot into the patient. These then end up getting distributed throughout the patient’s body. If a large number of them are functional, then every time the patient walks past a scanning station, the scanner monitor screen lights up like a Christmas tree. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218/60 "2021-08-23T06:25:24Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > And note how “mega-” has been used to mean “anything really really big”. By an amazing coincidence, “mega” happens to mean “big” in Greek. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-small-is-the-smallest-microchip-how-large-are-vaccine-needles/949218.md?page=4)