Size matters much that is Nano

SIZE

Let's start BIG to explain about Nano-size

A meter is about the distance from the tip of your nose to the end of your hand (1 meter = 3.28 feet). One thousandth of that is a millimeter.
Now take one thousandth of that, and you have a micron: a thousandth of a thousandth of a meter. Put another way: a micron is a millionth of a meter, which is the scale that is relevant to - for instance - building computers, computer memory, and logic devices.

Let’s go smaller to the nanometer
A nanometer is one thousandth of a micron, and a thousandth of a millionth of a meter (a billionth of a meter). Imagine: one billion nanometers in a meter.


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Another perspective: a nanometer is about the width of six bonded carbon atoms, and approximately 40,000 are needed to equal the width of an average human hair. Another way to visualize a nanometer: 1 inch = 25,400,000 nanometers Red blood cells are ~7,000 nm in diameter, and ~2000 nm in heightWhite blood cells are ~10,000 nm in diameterA virus is ~100 nmA hydrogen atom is .1 nmNanoparticles range from 1 to 100 nmFullerenes (C60 / Buckyballs) are 1 nmQuantum Dots (of CdSe) are 8 nmDendrimers are ~10 nmDNA (width) is 2 nmProteins range from 5 to 50 nmViruses range from 75 to 100 nmBacteria range from 1,000 to 10,000 nmFor our purposes, nanometers pertain to science, technology, manufacturing, chemistry, health sciences, materials science, space programs, and engineering.

Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions of roughly 1 to 100 nanometers, where unique phenomena enable novel applications. Encompassing nanoscale science, engineering and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale. At the nanoscale, the physical, chemical, and biological properties of materials differ in fundamental and valuable ways from the properties of individual atoms and molecules or bulk matter. Nanotechnology R&D is directed toward understanding and creating improved materials, devices, and systems that exploit these new properties. From What is Nanotechnology?


Powers of 10 From 10-15 meters (a fermi), in steps of 10, to 10 -9 meters (nanometer), all the way out to 10 +16 meters (a lightyear), and finally, to 10 +23 meters (10 million light years). If you have not seen this really neat series of viewpoints, it can help to put scale into perspective! "View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons." New Scientist has a great illustration on size.
Metric Prefix Table Units Conversion Tool 1 Units Conversion Tool 2