Order of magnitude

An order of magnitude is a factor of ten. For example, two numbers are said to differ by "3 orders of magnitude" if one is 1000 times larger than other. Orders of magnitude are quite easily and commonly described through the use of scientific notation and powers of ten.

One way of categorising things in the physical world is by their size. The pages below contain lists of items that are of the same order of magnitude in time, length, area, volume, mass, or energy. This is useful for getting an intuitive sense of the comparative size of things and the overall scale of the universe. SI units are used together with SI prefixes: these were devised with orders of magnitude in mind. Each individual page also gives other units; see also conversion of units.

In the following table the different quantities are lined up so that the following are in the same row: length and the time taken by light to cross that length, area of a square and the length of one side, volume of a cube and the area of one face, mass of some water and its volume. See also separate tables for length, area, volume, mass, time.

Time	Length	Area	Volume	Mass	Energy	Temperature
(second)	(metre)	(square metre)	(cubic metre)	(kilogram)	(joule)	(kelvin)
10-44 s	10-35 m
...
10-28 s	100 zm
10-27 s	1 am
10-26 s	10 am				1 peV	10 nK
10-25 s	100 am
10-24 s	1 fm				0.001 meV 0.01 meV 0.1 meV	0.01 K 0.1 K 1 K
10-23 s	10 fm				1 meV 10 meV 100 meV	10 K 100 K 1000 K
10-22 s	100 fm				1 eV 10 eV 100 eV	10,000 K 100,000 K 1,000,000 K
10-21 s	1 pm			10-33 kg 10-32 kg 10-31 kg	1000 eV 104 eV 105 eV	107 K
10-20 s	10pm			10-30 kg 10-29 kg 10-28 kg	1 MeV 10 MeV 100 MeV	1010 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	1013 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	1016 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	1019 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	1022 K
1 fs	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 104 J	1025 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	105 J 106 J 107 J	1028 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	108 J 109 J 1010 J	1031 K
1 ps	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	1011 J 1012 J 1013 J
10 ps	1 cm	1 cm2 10 cm2	1 ml 10 ml 100 ml	1 g 10 g 100 g	1014 J 1015 J 1016 J
100 ps	10 cm	0.01 m2 0.1 m2	1 l 10 l 100 l	1 kg 10 kg 100 kg	1017 J 1018 J 1019 J
1 ns	1 m	1 m2 10 m2	1 m3 10 m3 100 m3	1 t 10 t 100 t	1020 J 1021 J 1022 J
10 ns	10 m	100 m2 1,000 m2	1,000 m3 10,000 m3 105 m3	106 kg 107 kg 108 kg	1023 J 1024 J 1025 J
100 ns	100 m	1 ha 10 ha	106 m3 107 m3 108 m3	109 kg 1010 kg 1011 kg	1026 J 1027 J 1028 J
1 μs	1 km	1 km2 10 km2	1 km3 10 km3 100 km3	1012 kg 1013 kg 1014 kg
10 μs	10 km	108 m2 109 m2	1012 m3 1013 m3 1014 m3	1015 kg 1016 kg 1017 kg	1034 J
100 μs	100 km	1010 m2 1011 m2	1015 m3 1016 m3 1017 m3	1018 kg 1019 kg 1020 kg
1 ms	1000 km	1012 m2 1013 m2	1018 m3 1019 m3 1020 m3	1021 kg 1022 kg 1023 kg
10 ms	104 km	1014 m2 1015 m2	1021 m3 1022 m3 1023 m3	1024 kg 1025 kg 1026 kg	1041 J
100 ms	105 km	1016 m2 1017 m2	1024 m3 1025 m3 1026 m3	1027 kg 1028 kg 1029 kg
1 s	106 km	1018 m2 1019 m2	1027 m3 1028 m3 1029 m3	1030 kg 1031 kg 1032 kg	1047 J
10 s	107 km	1020 m2 1021 m2
100 s	1 AU
1 hr	10 AU			1039 kg 1040 kg 1041 kg
10 hr	100 AU
1 day	1000 AU
10 day	104 AU
1 yr	1 LY			1053 kg	1070 J
10 yr	10 LY
100 yr	100 LY
1000 yr	1000 LY
104 yr	104 LY
105 yr	105 LY
106 yr	106 LY
107 yr	107 LY
108 yr	108 LY
109 yr	109 LY
1010 yr	1010 LY
...
1 E21 s
1031 yr
1 E39 s

Units used in the table:

• Time: femtosecond (fs), nanosecond (ns), microsecond, (μs), millisecond (ms), second (m), hour (hr), day (dy), year (yr)
• Length:zeptometre (zm), attometre (am), femtometre (fm), picometre (pm), nanometre (nm), micrometre (µm), millimetre (mm), centimetre (cm), metre (m), kilometre (km), astronomical unit (AU), light year (LY)
• Area: square metre (m²), hectare (ha), square kilometre (km²)
• Mass: gram (g), kilogram (kg), tonne (t)
• Volume: millilitre (ml), litre (l), cubic metre (m³)
• Energy: electron volt (eV), Joule (J)
• Temperature: kelvin

Additional prefixes

• Deci- as in Decimetre (= 10 cm)
• Deca- as in Decametre (= 10 m)
• Hecto- as in Hectometre (= 100 m)
• Myra- as in Myrametre (= 10 km)
• Mega (10⁶)
• Giga (10⁹)
• Tera (10¹²)
• Peta (10¹⁵)
• Exa (10¹⁸)
• Zetta (10²¹)
• Yotta (10²⁴)

External links

• Powers of 10, a graphic animated illustration that starts with a view of the Milky Way at 10²³ meters and ends with subatomic particles at 10^-16 meters.
• Orders of magnitude - Distance