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Laterally Speaking

Real Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 356

Small numbers and measures

Here are the metric prefixes for all the denominations between 10^18 and 10^-18:

Yotta: 10^24
Zetta: 10^21
Exa: 10^18
Peta: 10^15
Tera: 10^12
Giga: 10^9
Mega: 10^6
Kilo: 10^3
Hecta: 10^2
Deca: 10^1

Deci: 10^-1
Centi: 10^-2
Milli: 10^-3
Micro: 10^-6
Nano: 10^-9
Pico: 10^-12
Femto: 10^-15
Atto: 10^-18
Zepto: 10^-21
Yocto: 10^-24

An atom is roughly between 10 and 100 nanometers across.
A quark is roughly 10 to 100 femtometers across (I said elsewhere that it was 1 or 2 attometers, but that was exagerated).

An exameter is roughly 9000 light-years.
A petameter is about 9 light-years.

As for the mostrecent additions to this list (Yotta, Zetta, Zepto, Yocto), they are beyond comprehension as far as measures go (the truth is, I can't really find anything to put them in perspective).

Last edited by Laterally Speaking (2007-06-22 09:21:30)

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"Knowledge is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined."
"This woman painted a picture of me; she was clearly a psychopath"

Laterally Speaking

Real Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 356

Re: Small numbers and measures

A yottameter is roughly 9000000000 ly. This is farther away than the most distant star we can observe, even if we take into account the fact that that star is moving away from us, so the image that we get is "old" in that it doesn't correspond to where the star really is.

A yoctosecond is probably the time it takes an electron to make 1/10^99 of a revolution around its nucleus.

Measures are odd in that they may seem to be infinite, but they have a finite nature to them; there is a point at which a measure is so small or large that it is meaningless. For example, a yoctosecond (20^-24 seconds) is so short that nothing can happen during that time, therefore, it is meaningless. On the other hand, a yottasecond is longer than the current age of the universe, so it's pretty meaningless; it's longer than the time it would take a photon to go one yottameter.

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"Knowledge is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined."
"This woman painted a picture of me; she was clearly a psychopath"

Laterally Speaking

Real Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 356

Re: Small numbers and measures

It seems that nobody is very interested in metric measures; the total lack of replies is a big clue...

I'll stop posting for a couple months here and see what pops up.

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"Knowledge is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined."
"This woman painted a picture of me; she was clearly a psychopath"

luca-deltodesco

Member

Registered: 2006-05-05

Posts: 1,470

Re: Small numbers and measures

no, i am interested, but there was nothing to really... post.

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MathsIsFun

Administrator

Registered: 2005-01-21

Posts: 7,713

Re: Small numbers and measures

I have Metric Numbers, but maybe I could add some more examples?

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"The physicists defer only to mathematicians, and the mathematicians defer only to God ..."  - Leon M. Lederman

Laterally Speaking

Real Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 356

Re: Small numbers and measures

OK. So maybe I should find some way of making it possible for you to post here.

Anybody have any idea what the smallest distance knows is?

And the longest?

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"Knowledge is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined."
"This woman painted a picture of me; she was clearly a psychopath"

Jai Ganesh

Administrator

Registered: 2005-06-28

Posts: 48,427

Re: Small numbers and measures

I have Metric Numbers, but maybe I could add some more examples?

I think yes, because Nano, Pico, Femto, Atto etc. may not be there!

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It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge - Stephen William Hawking.

Jai Ganesh

Administrator

Registered: 2005-06-28

Posts: 48,427

Re: Small numbers and measures

OK. So maybe I should find some way of making it possible for you to post here.

Anybody have any idea what the smallest distance knows is?

And the longest?

The smallest distance? The radius of an atom! Or still better, the radius of a quark!
And the largest? The distance of the most distant QUASAR in nanometers! Or picometers!
That would still be much larger than a googolth!

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It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge - Stephen William Hawking.

Laterally Speaking

Real Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 356

Re: Small numbers and measures

And the largest? The distance of the most distant QUASAR in nanometers! Or picometers!

How about in yoctometers?

The smallest: the distance traveled by an object, moving at 1 yoctometer per yottasecond, in one yoctosecond.

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"Knowledge is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined."
"This woman painted a picture of me; she was clearly a psychopath"