Question: how do you build shapes with atoms?

Oliver Gordon answered on 6 Mar 2019:

Simply put – atoms interact with each other. Although the equipment I use can only see spherical blobs, they’re actually made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. They all interact, too.
.
Because we know the maths of these interactions, we can do a lot of computer simulation (supercomputers required!) to figure out how we can exploit these interactions to make the molecules and shapes we want. And because the shapes of these molecules changes how they interact, we can engineer them to do our bidding!
.
(in theory!)