by CJ Kazilek
Words to know before you read
- Billion- a number represented as 1,000,000,000, or 109,
also equal to thousand millions.
- Matter- the stuff that makes up the
things we see. At the smallest level, matter is atoms, which are made of
protons, neutrons and electrons.
|
- Nano- a unit of measure that is a billion times smaller than a meter,
also billionth the size of a meter, or 10-9.
- Scale- is used
to describe the size differences between objects, or how large or small an
object is.
|
| You may not think about it, but size does matter. It is
especially true when talking about the very tiny world called the nano
world. In this tiny and often violent world, things no longer play by the
the same rules as the things we can see. They don't even behave the same as
things we can see with a light microscope. If you could shrink down to
the size of a nano object and observe you would see that is was very
different than the world we see. In the nano world things like to move
around. Often object crash into each other. If you could be a spectator
of this tiny world you might think you were watching a magic show
because you would be uncertain if you were actually seeing anything. |
Listen to the
Ask-a-Biologist
Tiny Matter podcast
 |
Just how small is a nano object?
This is a question that is hard to answer, because we are talking about
things that are a billion times smaller than a meter. Since we cannot see things
this small even with most microscopes it is hard to understand how really tiny nano objects
can be.
To get an idea of what the nano scale is like, here is a math activity presented at the
beginning of the Ask-a-Biologist podcast called "Tiny Matter". See how things change in
scale even before they change a billion times in size. The first two pages take
you through the exercise. At the end you will find a activity you can do to
solve the question of billions.
Scale Activity >>
|
