Tiny Numbers in Science
Even smaller numbers are often found in science, which are so small that they are not easily dealt with using fractions. Scientific notation was created to handle very small and very large numbers.
Examples of small numbers describing everyday real-world objects are:
- size of a bit on a computer hard disk
- feature size of a structure on a microprocessor chip
- wavelength of green light: 5.5 × 10-7 m
- period of a 100 MHz FM radio wave: 1 × 10-8 s
- time taken by light to travel one meter: roughly 3 × 10-9 s
- radius of a hydrogen atom: 2.5 × 10-11 m
- the charge on an electron: roughly 1.6 × 10-19 C (negative)
Other small numbers are found in particle physics and quantum physics:
- size of the atomic nucleus of a lead atom: 7.1 × 10-15 m
- the Planck length: 1.6 × 10-35 m
Read more about this topic: Small Number
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You are? Not any woman. Not a wife.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Individually, museums are fine institutions, dedicated to the high values of preservation, education and truth; collectively, their growth in numbers points to the imaginative death of this country.”
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“Art is the beautiful way of doing things. Science is the effective way of doing things. Business is the economic way of doing things.”
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915)