| STS ESET ae Sea NAS The realm of physics — range of magnitudes of quantities in our universe ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE — RANGE OF MASSES RANGE OF LENGTHS INCLUDING THEIR RATIOS Mos /hg Siee/m {As ated inthe inroduction to the IB ; : re | estrone usiene Physics diploma programe, Physics seeks mas lobenatie nivene | | TO 10 explain nothing ess than the Universe isl In tempting todo ths, the range of 107] i cl aalay ity Wap the magoitudes of various quarts willbe aot eat gy tly way? || a0 huge 10 1 the numbers involved are going to mean rot] tance anes oar anything itis important to get some fee for eae thelr slave sizes, To avoid geting los ‘ among the numbers its helpful o state them sresel tach 102] eta to Ear Sun tothe nearest order of magnitude or power tt mast oceans 0" often. The numbers are jut rounded por so nan latrospere sot Stee tom Fah oman down 25 appropiate | eis othe ach Comparisons can then be easily made caaeeeecie vot] emespaine ee et ol ower often jst a mate oF ding or clot subtracting whole numbers. The diameter of i 10 an atom, 10-1 m, dows no sud that mich trou 10° tengo igen Intger than the diameter ofa proton iis, Buea se eer ctpaa rucles, 10° m, but the ratio between pete 107] hima eon thems 10% o¢ 100000 times bigger. Thisis |_| ro: | Boater 5] sien th the sme aio as between the sze of» tons] Sicten o ralinay sation order of magnitude 10? my || 10° eats of open atom | the diameter ofthe Earth order of 1202] pacman melee 10° salon of amma magnitude 107), 1s is aide tot] ron sod dierons, 7 same of on | ee] eecion | |r BR | RANGE OF TIMES | RANGE OF ENERGIES son 7 foery 1 4 {mers oe 10 Spaeeunone var crepyeimsin enone carbon atom qos] Seetteaeh 10 gation 10! age of pecietomo spiens 104 wow "| ert aint Sun nee arth "27 iat ran oan ol for example, you would probably feel very || gx | 1 ‘ey ened nan carbute pleased with yourself you designed a new, te See ase environmentally (rendly source of energy Nera ott] Fhgor racer that could reduce 203510 rom 0.77 kg | | 10 of natural produce. Bu the meaning ofthese | | ¢| ben 10° evogyina gn cage numbers snot clear ~is thins Torisits | | | : ae like? In tears of orders of magnitodes, this || '°"] painserighequeney sound | | 1] etsy neded ochre s car ww " new source prodaces 10 joules per ° Kilogram of produce. This das not compare tc energy of tas ball tery well wih the 10° joules provided by savage ott acts aroom | | 10? ngs 2 slice of bread or the 108 joules veleesed 71 | exer in beat ys wig Be ilogram of pel we You do NOT need to memorse all ofthe vinstonofanininasad | fro values shown inthe tables, but yu should vod ot be ht 7 uy and develop a famianty with them. The | fro" ‘anges of mapnitode et and lat value for |. fro} err ren ero secton the fundamental measurements of mass, sage fp sero a atom | fete aaface ta ma length and tine need o be known, we ponigeetignscones cen | |gEstimation ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE Ris important o develop 2 feling’ for sore ofthe numbers that you use. When using a calculator, iis very easy to make a simple mistake (eg. by entering the data incorrect) ‘A good sway of checking the answer isto fist make an testimate before eesoring othe calculator. The roultiple- choice paper (paper 1) des nat allow the use of calculators ‘Approximate values for each ofthe fundamental SI units are siven below. Tg Appacket of supa, 1 live of water. A person would be about 50 kg oF more iim Distance between one’s hands with arms ‘usterched 1§ Duration ofa hear beat (when esting ican ‘easily double with exercise) amp Current flowing rom the mains electricity when a computes connected, The maxiroumn current to 2 clomestic device would be about 10.4 01 50 kelvin 1K i very ow temperature, Water eezes at 273K and boil at 373 K. Room temperature is about 300 « mot 12 gofearbon-t2, About the aumber of atoms of carbon inthe ‘lead’ ofa pencil ‘The same process can happen with some ofthe derived nits. Tims! Walking speed. A car moving 2t 30 ms! would be fast Tims? Quite a slow acceleration. The acceleration of gravity is 10 ms? IN Asmall force ~ about the weight of an apple 1V- Batteries generally cange from afew vols up to 20, (30, the mains is several hundred volts 1a Avery small pressure. Atmospheric pressure i about 10° Pa 1) Avery soall smount of energy ~ the work done liking a apple off the ground