1. to scale
100,000 light years
The milky way
galaxy. No, not the
candy bar.
1,400,000,000,000 mm
The Sun. Without
it, you’d be dead.
12,756,320,000 mm
The Earth.
’Nuff said.
1,524,000 mm
The space colony
that we’ll someday In the most general sense, physics uses What makes physics so interesting is
live in. the scientific method to understand that it is all around us, even though
The sweet Mercedes the most fundamental principles of we rarely think about it. It is in the
Ludacris is always
rapping about. nature. Physicists usually specialize traffic lights you stop at on the way
within a specific area of the field, al- to school, the toilet you flush after
though many times their interests your morning go, the ball you throw
4,656 mm overlap. Some examples of these fields to your dog in the yard, and the iPod
are astrophysics, geophysics, atomic you sing along to on that afternoon
and nuclear physics, quantum physics, jog. If you’re curious about the physi-
theoretical physics, and nanophysics. cal world, you benefit from studying
physics. The comprehension of phys-
ics is important for everybody, espe-
That phone that
cially in today’s world, because it leads
115.5 mm EVERYONE has.
to the solutions of problems such as
global warming (energy resources,
pollution, etc), space exploration
(Moon colonization, Mars research,
etc), communications, medicine,
and arms control.
That chickenpox
.0002 mm virus you had
when you were 5.
A nanobot. A
robot … inside
* In short, nanophysics is the study of the
controlling of matter on an atomic and
molecular scale. In the 1990’s, nanotech-
1,800 mm your body.*
nology focused on testing molecular
K. Eric Drexler. That .0001 mm
structures and refining ways to manipulate
physicist whose atoms using a scanning tunneling micro-
theories inspired
scope. The end goal of these experiments is
the Terminator
to create minute computers and molecular
franchise.
machines, which could be used for vital en-
gineering or medical tasks. Enthusiasts be-
lieve it will eventually be possible to allow
-10
1x10 mm the molecular correction of most diseases,
and even repair ageing cells. A nanometer is
A single atom
one billionth of a meter, roughly the width
(it doesn’t get
much smaller of three or four atoms. The average human
than this, kids). hair is about 25,000 nanometers wide.