Size Relationships of Big History Objects From the Universe to the Atomic Nucleus
##plugins.themes.bihistory.article.main##
Abstract
Big History involves a variety of sizes from the atomic nucleus to the size of the universe. How can we make sense of this? A popular video (Eames 1977) about the power of 10 took a “picture” for every factor of 10 in distance with over 40 “stops” from a nucleus (not even the smallest distance we can talk about) to the edge of the universe. Instead, we will explore just nine steps in distances of things we know about: the atomic nucleus, the atom, a bacterium, a human, the Earth, the distance to the sun, the distance to the closest star, the size of the galaxy, and the size of the universe. Quite amazingly, many of these distances can be estimated with only a few fundamental physics constants. Also, the ratio of the distances of the larger to the next smaller is about the same (with some exceptions): about 150,000. How can this factor of 150,000 be visualized? It is about the ratio of a commercial jet’s height compared to your palm, or, using the American standard unit of a football field, the smaller distance would be about 1/32 of an inch.
##plugins.themes.bighistory.article.details##
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).