Size of a Cell

The cell, along with the biochemistry that makes it function, is the fundamental unit of life. The cells that make up all living things, including people, come in many different sizes. For example, the smallest bacteria cell is about 0.3 micrometers in diameter, while the largest cell, the yolk of a bird's egg, can be several centimeters in diameter!

A red blood cell is about 8 micrometers in diameter.

This section is under development.

For convenience, we will make reference to a "standard" human cell that is about 25 micro-meters (0.000025 m) across. That is a factor of 100,000 times bigger than an atom and about five billion (5,000,000,000) times bigger than the atomic nucleus.

Nuclear physics borrowed some of its terminology from cellular biology. The nucleus of an atom, its center, takes its name from the nucleus of a cell (the red area in this colorized drawing). The word fission for the splitting of a nucleus was also borrowed from a word describing cell division.

Comparison of sizes to a Cell

... describe size of this object relative to person and atom.

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