Size and Scale: From Macro to Nano
Congratulations!
From this activity you now know what items are larger or smaller relative to one another. But how small exactly is something like the thickness of a penny to the length of a dust mite? The answer key below goes more in depth to how small an item or person is. They measure all the way down from meters to picometers.
|
Item
|
Image
|
Size
|
|---|---|---|
|
Height of an average five year old
|
 |
1 meter
|
|
Thickness of an apple seed
|
 |
8.0 mm
|
|
Thickness of a penny
|
 |
1.52 mm
|
|
Thickness of a sewing thread
|
 |
1.27 mm
|
|
Thickness of a staple
|
 |
1.0 mm
|
|
Length of a dust mite
|
 |
420 µm
|
|
Length of an amoeba
|
 |
500 µm
|
|
Width of a human muscle cell
|
 |
10-50 µm
|
|
Diameter of a red blood cell
|
 |
7-8 µm
|
|
Width of a bacterium
|
 |
5-10 µm
|
|
Wavelength of visible light
|
 |
400-700 nm
|
|
Diameter of a virus
|
 |
20 nm
|
|
Diameter of a ribosome
|
 |
10 nm
|
|
Width of a protein enzyme
|
 |
3-30 nm
|
|
Diameter of carbon nanotubes
|
 |
2.7 Å
|
|
Width of a water molecule
|
 |
1-5 Å
|
|
Diameter of an oxygen atom's nucleus
|
 |
6.3 pm
|
|
Diameter of a nitrogen atom
|
 |
.001pm
|
