Size of People

A reasonable reference size for the height of the average adult human being is about 170 cm (5' 7").

A proton is about 1,000,000,000,000,000 times smaller than this!

An atom is only 10,000,000,000 times smaller than we are.

A cell is about 70,000 times smaller than we are.

Curiously enough, the familiar corporate symbol in this picture is also about 170 cm (5' 7") tall, just the size we use for our comparisons here.

This section is still under development.

Use a Person to set Relative Sizes

If a nucleus was the size of Mickey, then a proton would be about the size of his head. That means an atom would be about 40 km (25 miles) across (about the size of the Los Angeles metropolitan area).

If an atom was the size of Mickey, then its nucleus would be less than 0.1 mm across (about the width of the line markings on a ruler). That also would mean that a person would be 17 million km tall - so big that the moon would be at your ankles and you could reach 1/10 of the way to the sun.

If a cell was the size of Mickey, then an atom would be about 0.01 mm and a person would be about 120 km (75 miles) tall.

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