Baby Astronaut Posted November 24, 2008 Share Posted November 24, 2008 Is there a size comparison of a photon, an atom, and a virus in a book or somewhere online? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Astronaut Posted November 27, 2008 Author Share Posted November 27, 2008 This visual display is the kind of thing I'm referring to. (it's pretty insane, eleven miles of webpage to show the distance between a proton and its electron -- although my visual needs are a bit more practical) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klaynos Posted November 27, 2008 Share Posted November 27, 2008 Photons have no size (although you can use wavelength, inwhich case take your pic). As for the comparison to an atom to a virus, a virus can be 10 to 300nm (about that), whereas the smallest atom is 25pm, which is pretty much 3 orders of magnitude smaller (1000 times). The largest currently studied atom is around 150pm... Just find things which have the same kind of order difference... Like a full stop and a lorry tire... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baby Astronaut Posted November 28, 2008 Author Share Posted November 28, 2008 Photons have no size (although you can use wavelength, inwhich case take your pic). As for the comparison to an atom to a virus, a virus can be 10 to 300nm (about that), whereas the smallest atom is 25pm, which is pretty much 3 orders of magnitude smaller (1000 times). The largest currently studied atom is around 150pm... Just find things which have the same kind of order difference... Like a full stop and a lorry tire... I take it pm is parts per million and nm is nanometers? If so, how many pm would equal 1 nm? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainPanic Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 pm is picometer, or [math]10^{-12}[/math] meter. nm is nanometer, of [math]10^{-9}[/math] meter. parts per million is abbreviated as "ppm". It means 1/1000000, just like percent (%) means 1/100 and per mille (‰) is 1/1000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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