Thread: How small is a nanometer?

Just how small is a nanometer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nl87_pqOZ4

Liked this guys analogy with the aircraft carrier... anyone got a better one?

Originally Posted by Robin Hood

Just how small is a nanometer?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nl87_pqOZ4

Liked this guys analogy with the aircraft carrier... anyone got a better one?

Nano anything is 1 billion of that anything.

One billionth of a meter or one billionth of a second. For instance light travels about a foot each nano second, its said a wave of energy is about one to three nanometers in width.

I think this stuff is so hard for the layman to visualise, which is why I liked the aircraft carrier comment in the video...

Though also liked your one about the speed of light.

Here is another another - less militaristic - example. Imagine that the diameter of the Earth would be compressed to 1 metre. Then something that was 1 millimetre in size becomes about 1 nanometre.