what is the atom size in 10 power
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Powers of 10
You might have already noticed that the numbers involved in astronomy range over a very large scale of sizes. The smallest sized objects you'll hear about (the electron and the atom )is much much much smaller than the Earth which is in turn itself much much much smaller than the Size of the Galaxy, and the scales continue up like this to the size of the Universe.
Since these numbers range over such small and such large values we get tired of writing out so many zeros, as was being written in the pervious section. We introduce something called powers of 10 notation. This is just a very simple introduction; you will get more and more experienced with this notation as you study astronomy and as you go along to the secions and examples on scientific notation and algebraic powers.
Perhaps it is best to illustrate this with an example. Consider the size of our Galaxy again ...:
Example: We said that the size of our Galaxy is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers. To get away from this cumbersome notation we count the number of zeros, which in this case is 18 zeros (count this yourself and maker sure you agree). We notice that 10 has one zero and 100 has two zeros and so on ... thus, each zero reprsents one power of 10, or one order of magnitude. So, instead of writing 18 zeros in front of 1, we write 10 and realize that if we multiply 10 by itself 18 times we will get a number with 18 zeros in front of it. Thus we write: 1018. We say that out galaxy is "10 to the power of 18" kilometers long!
This illustrates the basic idea of powers of 10. Each zero represents a power of 10, and if the zero is to the right of a number it represents a power of 10 larger and if a zero is to the left of a number it represents a power of 10 smaller (in this case we use negative powers). So, we can say that:
Length of our Galaxy is: 1018 kilometers
From Earth to Mars it is 107 kilometers
From School to my house it is: 10 kilometers
The size of an atom is: 10-12 kilometers
Powers of 10 thus allow us to compare sizes (and durations ... see scales below). We can say that the size of our galaxy is "11 orders of magnitude larger than the distance from here to mars and it is 17 orders of magnitude larger than the distance from school to my house". Basically, powers of 10 allow us to talk about degrees of "largness" and "smallness". This might seem confusing at this point, but it will clarify as you see more and more examples - which are abundant in astronomy.
Powers of 10
You might have already noticed that the numbers involved in astronomy range over a very large scale of sizes. The smallest sized objects you'll hear about (the electron and the atom )is much much much smaller than the Earth which is in turn itself much much much smaller than the Size of the Galaxy, and the scales continue up like this to the size of the Universe.
Since these numbers range over such small and such large values we get tired of writing out so many zeros, as was being written in the pervious section. We introduce something called powers of 10 notation. This is just a very simple introduction; you will get more and more experienced with this notation as you study astronomy and as you go along to the secions and examples on scientific notation and algebraic powers.
Perhaps it is best to illustrate this with an example. Consider the size of our Galaxy again ...:
Example: We said that the size of our Galaxy is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers. To get away from this cumbersome notation we count the number of zeros, which in this case is 18 zeros (count this yourself and maker sure you agree). We notice that 10 has one zero and 100 has two zeros and so on ... thus, each zero reprsents one power of 10, or one order of magnitude. So, instead of writing 18 zeros in front of 1, we write 10 and realize that if we multiply 10 by itself 18 times we will get a number with 18 zeros in front of it. Thus we write: 1018. We say that out galaxy is "10 to the power of 18" kilometers long!
This illustrates the basic idea of powers of 10. Each zero represents a power of 10, and if the zero is to the right of a number it represents a power of 10 larger and if a zero is to the left of a number it represents a power of 10 smaller (in this case we use negative powers). So, we can say that:
Length of our Galaxy is: 1018 kilometers
From Earth to Mars it is 107 kilometers
From School to my house it is: 10 kilometers
The size of an atom is: 10-12 kilometers
Powers of 10 thus allow us to compare sizes (and durations ... see scales below). We can say that the size of our galaxy is "11 orders of magnitude larger than the distance from here to mars and it is 17 orders of magnitude larger than the distance from school to my house". Basically, powers of 10 allow us to talk about degrees of "largness" and "smallness". This might seem confusing at this point, but it will clarify as you see more and more examples - which are abundant in astronomy.
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