Macro, Micro, Nano
Anyone who has looked through a microscope knows that beyond our vision an unknown and fascinating universe exists.Teeming bacteria which are visible in a drop of water when it is enlarged a thousand times, are on average a thousandth of a millimetre (a micrometre) thin. This is the microcosmos. The nanoworld however is even tinier!
In the nanocosmos you measure in billionths of a metre - which corresponds to 0.000.000.001 m and/or 10-9m. The following comparisons demonstrate this size ratio.
A nanometre is this size:
- in comparison to a metre it has the diameter of a 1 cent coin compared to the earth.
- 1 nm can fit into a full stop at the end of a sentence more than 100,000 times.
- It is around 50,000 times smaller than the diameter of a thin human hair.
- In the millimetre interval on a ruler there is enough room for a million nanometres.
The word component "nano" comes from the Greek "nanos" meaning "dwarf".