I like the suggested solution you pose.
I was going to remark that platinum is kind of a non-ideal material for most use cases.
Now mercury is another metal that behaves oddly (for a metal) and is a bit toxic as well.
It stands to reason that they would use platinum, one of the hardest metals known to conduct the experiment. If they were trying to create lots of friction at a nano level that would be the perfect one to use. It also explains how a thin piece of metal could withstand such a tremendous load of working described.
...Still interesting.