4 ms·
As another (minor) clarification to the article, where it says: If your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses from car
by alister 13y ago
As another (minor) clarification to the article, where it says:
If your finger was the size of the Earth, you could feel the difference between houses from cars
I think it would be easier to visualize this way:
If the Earth was the size of an orange, your finger could feel the difference between houses from cars
- bjornsing 13y agoThat still requires a pretty impressive feel for the relative size of oranges and planets though. I would have preferred something like this table: 2 nm Diameter of a DNA Alpha helix 4 nm Globular Protein 6 nm microfilaments 7 nm thickness cell membranes 20 nm Ribosome 25 nm Microtubule 30 nm Small virus (Picornaviruses) 30 nm Rhinoviruses 50 nm Nuclear pore 100 nm HIV So 13 nm is on the scale of a very small virus... :)
- lukevdp 13y agoSomething tells me that you don't really need an analogy at all :)
- sliverstorm 13y agoA virus is 30nm? Good lord. The minimum feature size of commercial transistors is half that right now.
- nostromo 13y agoI like your analogy better. But it still implies that you could feel one car and one house, which you couldn't. So, perhaps an even better analogy would be: If the Earth was the size of an orange, your finger could feel the difference between cities and forests. This puts more emphasis on the distinct patterns the objects form as a group, rather than the individual objects.