- Joined
- Feb 17, 2007
I was reading an article that said there are about five nonillion bacteria on Earth. This is 5 x 10^30 bacteria. I got to wondering how many that really is. ( Obviously, I must have too much free time on my hands. ) So to give us an idea, let's take a look at the series of number naming in factors of 1,000. We have:
thousand .... 1,000
million ........ 1,000,000
billion ......... 1,000,000,000
trillion ........ 1,000,000,000,000
quadrillion ... 1,000,000,000,000,000
quintillion .... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
sextillion ..... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
septillion ..... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
octillion ...... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
nonillion ...... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
OK, so how many is that? Well, if the average bacterium weighs a trillionth of a gram, this would put their total weight at about five quintillion grams, or five trillion ( 5,000,000,000,000 ) metric tonnes. Assuming a density equal to water, this would be a cube 17.1 kilometers or 10.6 miles high.
Let's say the average bacterium is about one thousandth of a millimeter long. That means that if you laid all bacteria on Earth end to end, they would stretch about 5 sextillion kilometers. This is about 530,000,000 light years, or about 210 times the distance to the Andromeda galaxy. ( Will we run afoul of the language filters typing "sextillion"? )
That's a lot of germs !!!! Break out the Lysol.
thousand .... 1,000
million ........ 1,000,000
billion ......... 1,000,000,000
trillion ........ 1,000,000,000,000
quadrillion ... 1,000,000,000,000,000
quintillion .... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000
sextillion ..... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
septillion ..... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
octillion ...... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
nonillion ...... 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
OK, so how many is that? Well, if the average bacterium weighs a trillionth of a gram, this would put their total weight at about five quintillion grams, or five trillion ( 5,000,000,000,000 ) metric tonnes. Assuming a density equal to water, this would be a cube 17.1 kilometers or 10.6 miles high.
Let's say the average bacterium is about one thousandth of a millimeter long. That means that if you laid all bacteria on Earth end to end, they would stretch about 5 sextillion kilometers. This is about 530,000,000 light years, or about 210 times the distance to the Andromeda galaxy. ( Will we run afoul of the language filters typing "sextillion"? )
That's a lot of germs !!!! Break out the Lysol.
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