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How Big Are Things?
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small Real
world

big     solar system between galaxy
nano
micro
meter
kilo
Mega
Giga
Tera
Peta
Exa
  micrometer's Room - looking at a sheet of graph paper
  um = 10-6 m
look at the entire room
 
galaxy21
 20
19
local stars18
 17
16
between15
 14
13
E's orbit12
 11
10
sun9
 8
7
texas6
 5
4
hood3
 2
1
you0
 -1
-2
salt grain-3
 -4
-5
bacteria-6
 -7
-8
atom-9
10-6 m    1 um
10-5 m    10 um
10-4 m    100 um

bacteria ~1 um red blood cell ~10 um

hair ~100 um diameter

Looks like a tree trunk?


paramecium Source, image "Courtesy of Sidney Tamm".
(Looks odd? I wonder if it's dead and dried out.)

toilet-paper tube

src q-tip cotton
Looks like twigs?


a bacteria "train" from my mouth

 inches  mils (1/1000 inch)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6

1200 dpi
600 dpi
your screen dot

Amoeba

human egg

    ... most Prokaryotic cells
... most Eukaryotic animal cells


src,
image
human chromosomes

human red blood cell
capillary blood vessel
... rbc's fit through because they are squishy.
Hmm... another source claims 8-10 um...?

air



air
goo
wall
capillary
alveoli wall (~300um balloon) if you were inside the alveoli, it would look somewhat like being in those big theaters here with the round roofs, and you can look up and you can see sort of a tiled effect? That's kind of what you might imagine. You'll see these cells that are attached together much like tiles are on a floor. src[edited]

Saran wrap (kitchen plastic wrap)


thin aluminum foil (used in laminates)
typical kitchen foil
typical aluminum tray
thick aluminum foil (thicker than 200 um is called "sheet" rather than "foil" :)

src pollen


pin head (size approximate ±~15%) source, img




cilia (min/max)

... amoeba cyst src

... sneeze droplets src

: ... ... yeast src

corner of a grain of salt

single optical fiber (no coating) src

Thumbnail of nanofloor.

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