Annex: Order of magnitude

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Intuitively, the order of magnitude of a number is the number of zeros before or after the decimal point; thus, a range of eight orders of magnitude implies one hundred million. It is the class of scale or magnitude of any quantity, in which each class contains values in a fixed proportion with respect to the previous class. The most commonly used ratio is 10. For example, two numbers are said to differ by 3 orders of magnitude if one is 1000 times larger than the other. The most widespread use of describing orders of magnitude is through scientific notation and powers of ten.

One way to classify objects in the physical world is by their size. The pages mentioned below contain lists of objects that are of the same order of magnitude in time, length, area, volume, mass, or energy. Their usefulness is that they allow us to intuitively grasp the relative size of things and the scale of the universe. Base units of the SI (International System of Units) and SI prefixes are used: these have been designed with orders of magnitude in mind. On each individual page, in turn, other units are mentioned; see also unit conversion.

In the table below, the different quantities have been arranged so that they lie on the same line: distance and time it takes light to cover that distance, area and side of a square, volume of a cube, and area of a face, mass of water and its volume. See also the separate tables for length, area, volume, mass, time, energy, and dimensionless numbers.

Time	Length km → hm → dam → m → dm → cm → mm	Area	Volume	Masa	Energy	Temperature
(second)	(meter)	(square diameter)	(cubic)	(kilogram)	(July)	(kelvin)
10-44 s	10-35 m
...
10-28 s	100 zm
10-27 s	1 am					1 nK
10-26 s	10 am				1 peV	1 μK
10-25 s	100 am					1 mK
10-24 s	1 fm				0.001 meV 0.01 meV 0.1 meV	1 K
10-23 s	10 fm				1 meV 10 meV 100 meV	10 K 100 K 1000 K
10-22 s	100 fm	10-28 m2			1 eV 10 eV 100 eV	10,000 K 100,000 K 106 K
10-21 s	1 pm			10-33 kg 10-32 kg 10-31 kg	1000 eV 104 eV 105 eV	109 K
10-20 s	10pm			10-30 kg 10-29 kg 10-28 kg	1 MeV 10 MeV 100 MeV	109 K
10-20 s	10pm			10-30 kg 10-29 kg 10-28 kg	1 MeV 10 MeV 100 MeV	1012 K
10-19 s	100 pm	10-20 m2 10-19 m2		10-27 kg 10-26 kg 10-25 kg	1 GeV 10 GeV 100 GeV	1015 K
10-18 s	1 nm	10-18 m2 10-17 m2		10-24 kg 10-23 kg 10-22 kg	1 TeV 10 TeV 100 TeV	1018 K
10-17 s	10 nm	10-16 m2 10-15 m2		10-21 kg 10-20 kg 10-19 kg	0.0001 J 0.001 J 0.01 J	1021 K
10-16 s	100 nm	10-14 m2 10-13 m2	10-21 m3 10-20 m3 10-19 m3	10-18 kg 10-17 kg 10-16 kg	0.1 J 1 J 10 J	1024 K
1 f	1 μm	10-12 m2 10-11 m2	10-18 m3 10-17 m3 10-16 m3	10-15 kg 10-14 kg 10-13 kg	100 J 1000 J 10000 J	1027 K
10 fs	10 μm	10-10 m2 10-9 m2	10-15 m3 10-14 m3 10-13 m3	10-12 kg 10-11 kg 10-10 kg	100000 J 0.001 kWh 0.01 kWh	1030 K
100 fs	100 μm	10-8 m2 10-7 m2	10-12 m3 10-11 m3 10-10 m3	10-9 kg 10-8 kg 10-7 kg	0.1 kWh 1 kWh 10 kWh
1 p	1 mm	10-6 m2 10-5 m2	10-9 m3 10-8 m3 10-7 m3	10-6 kg 10-5 kg 10-4 kg	100 kWh 1000 kWh 10000 kWh
10 ps	1 cm	1 cm2 10 cm2	1 ml 10 ml 100 ml	1 g 10 g 100 g	100000 kWh 1 TWh 10 TWh
100 ps	10 cm	0.01 m2 0.1 m2	1 l 10 l 100 l	1 kg 10 kg 100 kg	100 TWh 1000 TWh 10000 TWh
1 ns	1 m	1 m2 10 m2	1 m3 10 m3 100 m3	1 t 10 t 100 t	100000 TWh 106 TWh 107 TWh
10 ns	10 m	100 m2 1,000 m2	1,000 m3 10,000 m3 105 m3	106 kg 107 kg 108 kg	108 TWh 109 TWh
100 ns	100 m	1 ha 10 ha	106 m3 107 m3 108 m3	109 kg Dorotheergasse 10, 1010 kg 1011 kg	1012 TWh
1 μs	1 km	1 km2 10 km2	1 km3 10 km3 100 km3	1012 kg 1013 kg 1014 kg	1015 TWh
10 μs	10 km	108 m2 109 m2	1012 m3	1015 kg 1016 kg 1017 kg	1018 TWh
100 μs	100 km	1010 m2 1011 m2	1015 m3	1018 kg 1019 kg 1020 kg	1021 TWh
1 m	1000 km	1012 m2 1013 m2	1018 m3	1021 kg 1022 kg 1023 kg	1024 TWh
10 m	104 km	1014 m2 1015 m2	1021 m3	1024 kg	1027 TWh
100 m	105 km	1016 m2 1017 m2	1024 m3	1027 kg	1030 TWh
1 s	106 km	1018 m2 1019 m2	1027 m3	1030 kg	1033 TWh
10 s	107 km	1020 m2 1021 m2		1033 kg	1036 TWh
100 s	1 UA			1036 kg	1039 TWh
1 h	10 UA			1039 kg	1042 TWh
10 h	100 UA			1042 kg	1045 TWh
1 day	1000 UA			1045 kg	1048 TWh
10 days	104 UA			1048 kg	1051 TWh
1 year	1 AL			1051 kg	1054 TWh
10 years	10 AL
100 years	100 AL
1000 years	1000 AL
104 years	104 AL
105 years	105
106 years	106 AL
107 years	107 AL
108 years	108 AL
109 years	109
1010 Year	Alberti
1011 years
1012 years and more

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Annex: Order of magnitude

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