18 21 24 27 Exa YottaZetta metres The femtometre which is 1000 times smaller still allows us to measure the nucleus of the atom i e the world of protons and neutrons An individual proton has a diameter of roughly one femtometre When working on this scale physicists determine distances using scatter ing experiments 100 years ago New Zealander Ernest Rutherford was the first to fire protons at gold foil in order to draw conclusions on the size of the gold atoms based on the distribution of the scattered particles He realised that an atom contains a compact core that is surrounded by electrons at a great distance If the nucleus was as large as a football the electron which would be about a tenth of a millimetre across would orbit the football at a distance of three kilometres signifying a lot of air between the nucleus and the electron SEPTILLION TIMES IS UNIMAGINABLE From the innermost reaches of the nucleus to the furthest galaxies the humble metre scales by roughly 42 or ders of magnitude the universe is therefore approximately septillion or 1042 times larger than a proton This number is impressive but luckily we don t have to imagine these scales that s something we re happy to leave to the scientists Now that our journey from the microcosm to the macro cosmos is complete it s clear that the metre is quite literally one giant leap for mankind maybe even the meas ure of all things The physically relevant range begins at 10 18 metres the size of elementary particles and stretches all the way to 1026 metres In the process it spans 44 orders of magnitude from nuclear physics through biology and technology to the furthest galaxies This means that a huge number of different procedures are required to measure distances Source Wikipedia FROM THE INNERMOST REACHES OF THE NUCLEUS TO THE FURTHEST GALAXIES THE HUMBLE METRE SCALES BY ROUGHLY 42 ORDE RS OF MAGNITUDE 29

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