Introduction

The Vitruvian Man

Wiki Leonardo da Vinci

Size of the Universe

In this model, the sun is a very tiny speck of dust indeed—a speck less than a three-thousandth of an inch in diameter … Think of the sun as something less than a speck of dust in a vast city, of the earth as less than a millionth part of such a speck of dust, and we have perhaps as vivid a picture as the mind can really grasp of the relation of our home in space to the rest of the universe. —

Sir James Jeans In The Universe Around Us (1953), 96.

Relative Size of Things

structure size of structure
coffee bean 12 X 8mm
grain of rice 8 X 2.5mm
sesame seed 3 X 2mm
grain of salt .5mm
ameba 500 microns
paramecium 210X60 microns
human ovum 130 microns

photoreceptor

100 X 2.5 microns

sperm

60 X 5 microns

skin cell

30 microns

red cell

8 microns

X chromosome

7 microns

baker’s yeast

3 X 4 microns
E Coli bacterium 3 X .6 microns
mitochondrion 4 X .8 microns

lysosyme

.1 micron

measles virus

220 nanometers
influenza virus 130 nm
hiv virus 130 nm
coated vesicle 90 nm

hepatitis virus

45nm
rhinovirus 30nm

ribosome

30nm
ribosome 30nm

antibody

12 nm

tRNA

7nm
phospholipid .9 X 3.4nm

methionine

1100 X 700pm

adenine

1300 X 760pm

glucose

900pm
water molecule 275pm
carbon atom 340pm

References

Carl Sagan  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=t4Tst9DZFPI