Posted February, 2014 for Lectures for Senior University Georgetown

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David Blatner has written a number of books, among them, pertinent to our series, this one. It was published in Nov 2012, with 192 pages. Publisher: Walker, hardcover, $25.00. (9780802717702). 539.2.

A reviewer said: .
    While the size of the universe can be gauged down to level of electrons and out to unimaginable distances trillions of light-years away, most of us live within a very narrow, middle-range slice of day-to-day observation. With the aim of enhancing our appreciation for the dimensions we don’t normally perceive, prolific science writer Blatner takes a closer look at six scales of measurement, or spectrums, with which our lives are daily intertwined: numbers, size, light, sound, heat, and time. Leavened with wit and colorful anecdotes, each section reveals a wealth of astonishing and quirky details about the world around us. In “Numbers,” for instance, we learn that engineers could not calculate rocket trajectories without imaginary numbers. “Light” attempts to elucidate the mind-bending paradox that light is both a particle and a wave. Complete with illustrative charts, photos, and pithy quotes from celebrities as diverse as George Carlin and Max Planck, Blatner’s work is one of those rare nonfiction gems that make learning about science eyeopening and fun.

Some Comparative Sizes

These pictures may help you to recognize our place in the universe. Let's start with the large and move down.
    If you were a whole continent, perhaps a tiny gland in you, maybe your pitutary or parathyroid gland, might be a small section of the California coast. Then widen that mountain range out and this is not a real harbor, but just to give the size, this second picture is the size of that small organ.

Within that whole area say the ship is a cell. And within the cell is something the size of the truck, which is an "organelle," a small identifiable part, like a mitochonria. And within that maybe the size of a tiny cat is a large molecule, and on the man's hand is a marble which is comparatively the size of a marble and a bb which is an atom. Saying it again backwards, an atom is to a human what a bb is to the continent of North America.

A protozoa varies from smaller than the ship shown to maybe three times larger, a giant oil tanker---but it's still pretty tiny compared to a coastline.

Now on the right below is another series, since we're talking about size.



 



Well!

      










So all this is aimed at helping you to appreciate the scale of our world, how large and small it can be. Here's another, below:

A human hand. Note the mosquito. The little box is 1/10 of the diameter and 1/100 of the area. That's what it means to go down by a factor of ten.

Smaller still, 1/10 the size of the picture on the left, a grain of salt, a cross-section of skin, a water mite.. and most one-celled animals are about the size of two to four cells in length, though they can be bigger or smaller.

Here's Another Series to Try to Communicate the Size of Protozoa:

The picture below is thus magnified. Not that only if you were to look very closely would you see some of this stuff, like a grain of salt.

For size comparison, a mosquito, a grain of salt, some bacteria on the skin. Now go to the right-->

Now below, smaller yet than the picture on the right, the edge of the piece of salt, and now you're in the less-than-1/10th of a millimeter. Again, think of protozoa as two cells or more in length.

A grain of salt, a cross-section of skin, a water mite.. and most one-celled animals are about the size of two to four cells in length, though they can be bigger or smaller.