Talk:Orders of magnitude (mass)

Removal of centigram from common/frequent prefixes
I've removed the bold from the "cg centigram" entry in the "SI multiples for gram (g)" chart. The criterion used on this page also differs from the one on the kilogram page (the former requires that 250 000+ hits return in a Google search for the word, the latter requires more than 5 combined uses in the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English) and neither of the criteria are met. Google returns 211 000 hits for "centigram" and 39 800 hits for "centigramme".

The BNC ostensibly returns 3 hits for "centigram" but this is deceptive as it refers only to a company called "Centigram Communications". I'd argue that the company name was deliberately chosen for reasons of familiar obscurity. The plural "centigrams", and the word "centigramme" and its plural "centigrammes" returns 0 hits in the BNC. In the COCA the word "centigram" ostensibly returns 8 hits, but 7 of these 8 are again references to the San Jose based company "Centigram Communications" and the 1 remaining one is a reference to a remedial student assistant tool.

--Blck Blk (talk) 17:55, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Conversion from SI prefixes to Kg
I have noted that in the mass list there is what appears to be an incorrect 1 to 1 correspondence between the metric prefix expression of mass and that in kilograms. For instance I see 1 x 10^-18 as the kilogram value for the HIV-1 virus and it is listed as femtograms in the factor column. It appears to me that if the kilogram value is correct (which I don't seem to find a mass on the HIV-1 page) then the mass would actually be attograms or 1 x 10^-18 as there are 1000 grams in a kilogram there should be a factor of three difference between the factor column and the kg column I would think. This also appears to be the case for attograms and others. Am I missing something or is there a problem here.

Randwulf76 (talk) 16:29, 24 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Table looks correct. The factor column is also in kg (the standard SI unit). 10&minus;18 kg is 1 atto-kilogram or 1 femtogram, as per table at the top of the arcticle. Confusing units ; unit base is kg, name base is gram. P.S. Wikipedia standard is to add new discussions at the bottom of the talk page. lav (talk) 12:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Critical density
This says that the mass of the observable Universe is greater than the mass of a critical density Universe. Yet the universe is thought to be flat or open, which implies a total universal mass of less than the critical mass, yes?

As far as I've understood it, the Chandrasekhar limit is supposed to be 3 times the mass of the sun, although here it says that the sun weighs 2 times something, and the Chandrasekhar limit is 3 times the same something (i.e. 1.5 times the mass of the sun). Which is correct? --Dolda2000 04:51, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * See Chandrasekhar limit, about 1.4 times the mass of the sun. &mdash; QuantumEleven | (talk) 14:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Significant digits
I think that many of the numbers in this table are far too precisely stated, and that it is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. They are an annoying destraction which keeps people from seeing the overall picture which this table is intended to present.

Links are included to most of the examples given (and if not, it most likely isn't a precise number in any case). Let the people interested in that number follow the link for more information; reserve this for what it is supposed to show.

I'd say no more than 3 significant digits would work for most of these numbers (maybe 4 or even 5 on rare occasions; e.g., if that results in an exact number (not a measured quantity)).

Various, unharmonized methods of showing approximateness could also then be thrown out, with perhaps a subheading in the caption about the numbers not being precise.

Along the same lines, other than in the first column there should be no scientific notation except at the extremes of the table. Gene Nygaard 12:39, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I think it is convenient to have the accurate values where applicable. The overall picture is clear from the vertical position in the table.--Patrick 00:04, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * Gene is right. This article is about relationships, not about individual masses. Maximum precision is definitely distracting and can be given elsewhere&mdash;that's what links are for, Patrick! Accordingly, I have improved several entries for better readability. &mdash;Herbee 23:28, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

GeV to g
would it be possible to have an explanation for the sub-atomic particles' mass being expressed in GeV, either as a footnote, asterisk or a link? It took me a long time to figure out that it was an expression of energy and I think it would be good to inform younger/less informed readers as to the convention. Matithyahu 19:42, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

dosages
Do we really need all the drug and lethal dosage examples? "1.5×10−11 kg: Lethal dose of botulin toxin"; "10−7 kg: "Hit" of LSD (100 micrograms)"; "2×10−7 kg: Lethal dose of ricin (200 micrograms)"; "1–3×10−5 kg: Dose of DXM per labeling on most products (10-30 milligrams)"; "3×10−4 kg: Hallucinogenic dose for mescaline (0.3 grams)" etc.

I ask not because I'm a prude, but because
 * 1) It looks like some high school kid's joke, and unprofessional
 * 2) It's pointless. You can't say "x is about the weight of the hallucinogenic doe of mescaline", whereas saying "x is about the weight of an elephant" makes perfect sense.

&mdash; Asbestos | Talk   (RFC)  17:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Was hoping someone else would have noticed this. I got suspicious of the drug mob invading this page when it read 'mass of caffeine molecule', and things didn't get much better later on. I completely agree with Asbestos, I'm in favour of replacing / removing some examples. 87.212.128.62 18:05, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The LSD example should be kept, because it's a drug with an unusually low active dose, but the other drug examples are uninteresting. --4hodmt 13:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That is an interesting property of LSD and should be mentioned in its article. It does not, however, help make the item good for giving the reader a feel for the mass order of magnitude, which is what this article is about. Henning Makholm 19:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Systematic Error
There is i chance of misleading in the article. I think each prefix-instance (e.g. 10E-3, 10E-6, 10E-9, etc.) should have a unit and i suggest gram (g) after it. I know the SI unit is kg, but you cant have a combination of prefixes, like kmg for kilomilligram. Therefore, the most logical appending unit should be g.

/Björn Brian


 * No, that's not logical. The only legal base unit is the kilogram. --Heron 21:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The column 'Factor (kg)' is confusing. If you take the meaning of prefix at face value it is not associated with the 10n factor labled next to it. Perhaps it would be worth having a separate column next to it to show that 10-6 is not the same as a milligram: milli: 10-3 and milligram (mg): 10-3g and to amphasize that the 10n factor is a multiple of kg, which is the SI uni.

RedHotIceCube 27 May 2007

Other mass pages
There are individual order of magnitude mass pages e.g. 1 E2 kg and 1 E-27 kg. Doesn't this page cover all of them already? Shouldn't they be merged with this, or removed? --PhiJ 18:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Exactly what I was thinking... —Doug Bell talk•contrib 18:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Why merge?
Why were the individual mass pages merged here? Certain articles used them to provide a means of comparing objects of similar mass, but now one is led to the top of this page, and the reader needs to scroll down. I didn't find any discussion of the reason. Alternatively, could this article's table be adapted to use section headers so that redirects could at least link to the right part of the table? Yet another alternative might have been to make the indicudual mass pages templates and transclude them here. -213.219.186.138 19:23, 16 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I proposed it above, and then nobody disagreed, so it got done. Interestingly enough, the opposite consensus was agreed on Talk:Orders of magnitude (length).  Maybe they should be the same, and it should be remade.  Anybody disagree? --PhiJ 16:50, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

No disagreeement. And yes please undo the merge or remake the pages somehow. I'm the same anon as above BTW, only the IP changed. -213.219.184.105 22:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please undo merger. --mav

As an experiment I added a named anchor for 1010 to this page and modified 1 E 10 kg to use it. Now someone who goes to 1 E 10 kg should be redirected here, but autoscrolled down to 1010. What do you think about doing the rest? It's a bunch of work. —RP88 07:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm. It doesn't seem to work with the redirect, although a direct link to the anchor (i.e. 1 E 10 kg) works. Oh well. —RP88 08:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Hydrogen mass
The article says "1.674×10−27 kg 	Hydrogen atom, the lightest atom 1.675×10−27 kg 	Neutron (939.6 MeV/c²)." How can a neutron weigh more than hydrogen, that doesn't make any sense. - PiMaster3 19:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * A neutron is actually very slightly heavyer than a proton. A hydrogen atom contains a proton and an electron, which weighs practically nothing compared to a proton, so the mass of an electron, added to the mass of a proton is less than the mass of a neutron. --PhiJ 18:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Observable universe masses
I've removed both of the universe masses because they don't seem to make any sense. For one, they aren't well defined at all. It isn't clear whether mass should be taken to mean the mass of baryonic matter or the mass of all matter. Or is it something like $$\Omega \rho_{crit} V_{observable}$$, which really doesn't make too much sense for Lambda-CDM? I assume that the "mass of the critical density universe" refers to the observable universe, with $$\Omega_{mat} = 1$$ and $$\Omega_{vac} = 0$$, otherwise we can just alter the vacuum energy density and get whatever we want with $$\Omega_{total} = 1$$. But even ignoring these problems, it seems that the mass of the observable universe given, when compared to the mass of the critical density universe given, must result in Ω ending up much larger than 1 - it seems that it results in it being more like 2.

If you want to add these back, you should clearly define what the values are, and add either reliable (and recent!) sources for the values, or calculate the values in the Observable universe article, which shouldn't be too hard. On the other hand, I may just be rambling incoherently, and I really should go to sleep. --Philosophus T 10:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it does have some encyclopedic value to have a ballpark estimate of the "largest meaningful mass", to use in conversations like "Let's sift the ocean for plutonium that formed spontaneously in the water by quantum tunnelling, and build a bomb!" - "Dude, that would need (calculate, calculate, find comparison value in encyclopedia) ... sifting significantly more seawater than the mass of the entire universe". For such purposes one does not need very precise numbers. It could be labeled "Baryonic matter known to exist in the observable universe" if you would prefer at least to have a precise-sounding definition. Henning Makholm 11:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * That is somewhat what I am saying. I will probably add it within the next 24 hours, but am not in a state to do so right now. Order of magnitude figures are great, and are somewhat the point of this article, but they need to make sense, and not create issues like this. To do this correctly, I will add justification to the Observable universe page as well. --Philosophus T 12:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)


 * At some point some VERY antiquated values from here: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2006/KristineMcPherson.shtml got put back into the chart. I'm a physicist and these numbers are completely unacceptable to use here.  I've found a reference for the mass of the observable universe, so that should do. 108.92.224.27 (talk) 02:12, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Big Ben
I have changed "Bell of Big Ben" to "Big Ben (Bell)," as Big Ben is the name of the bell, not the tower.

add masses
Put some weak particles in: axions, Goldstone bosons, etc. -lysdexia

add weight of the internet
Can someone who knows how, add the weight of the internet? Discover, in the recent article How Much Does The Internet Weigh? claims that it is 1.3 x 10-8 pound, assuming that electrons have weight.

--Guthrie 21:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Sand
I know this is relatively unimportant, but the masses given for grains of sand (small and large) implied densities of about 21 g/cm^3, which of course is much too large. I corrected the masses, using as the density 2.65 g/cm^3, which is the density of quartz. Of course not all sand is made of quartz... but that density is in the right ballpark anyway. Kier07 04:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Practical example(s) for gram
It seems unfortunate and a little misleading to give the euro and dollar coins as examples when both are closer to a decagram than a gram. I've always used a paper clip as an example of a gram, but that of course is not a very standardized object - they come in so many shapes and sizes and I can't find a reliable source for their mass. I'm tempted to use it anyway, and move the coins to the decagram row, but would invite better examples for gram. Surely there's something very common, uniform in mass, and close to a gram. --Scray (talk) 16:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The euro cent (2.3g) and US cent (2.5g) might be better examples - they're about a third the mass and equally ubiquitous. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

YOTTA METRE
ITS 10^24 NOT 10^21, RIGHT? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.163.133 (talk) 13:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

smallest conceivable mass-energy?
So, the observable universe is estimated to have a diameter of 1027m. A photon with this wavelength would have an energy of E=hc/λ, or about 6.6E−34*3E8*1E-27=2×10-52J=1.2×10-33eV=2.2×10-69kg.

My question is, is there a way to imagine a finite mass-energy which is in a meaningful sense smaller than 1E-69 kg / 1E-33 eV? Seeing as a photon of this energy would not "fit into the universe"? Apparently, the experimental upper bound of photon rest mass is close to 1E-27 eV. Does this mean that if this can be improved to 1E-33, it would actually prove that the photon cannot have a rest mass in any meaningful sense? --dab (𒁳) 08:39, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Total mass of world's population
The figure given here (4×10 11 kg) for the total mass of all humans differs from two published lower estimates of 2.7 ×10 11 kg [Smil, Vaclav. 2002 The earth’s biosphere : evolution, dynamics, and change. MIT Press, page 186 and appendix F] and 2.87 ×10 11 kg [Walpole SC, Prieto-Merino D, Edwards P, Cleland J, Stevens G, Roberts I. 2012. "The weight of nations: an estimation of adult human biomass", BMC Public Health, 12:439 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-12-439 http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-12-439.pdf].

The difference lies in the estimate of the average human body mass. As Vaclav Smil notes, "The lower average body mass and a higher share of children in  populations  of  low-income  countries  mean  that that the weighted global mean of human body mass is only about 45 kg per capita. Consequently, at the beginning of 2000,  the  global  anthropomass  of  just  over  six  billion people amounted to about 270 Mt of live weight"LittleHow (talk) 05:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * A revision on above: Vaclav Smil has published a more recent paper in which he calculates a new figure of 3 ×10 11 kg for a world population of 6 billion. Given the world's population has passed 7 billion this figure should be adjusted up to 3.6 ×10 11 kg--which is nearer the 4×10 11 kg figure in the article. See Smil, V. 2011. Harvesting the Biosphere: The Human Impact, Population and Development Review 37(4) : 613–636.LittleHow (talk) 05:21, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Higgs?
Should the Higgs be there as well? And if yes, can some calculate the mass equivalent of the energy of a Higgs? Tony Mach (talk) 07:17, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

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Fruit Fly (Dry Weight)
Why is the fruit fly mass given as dry weight? (and the Dunaliella salina?)

All other organisms appear to have their mass listed in hydrated/live form, so this seems a little odd. Could I suggest the article be made more consistent? 94.7.105.6 (talk) 19:08, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

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Change of standard to gram from Kg
I'd like to propose changing the base unit to the gram, while adding a note at the top of the page being clear as to what the standard unit is. It's inconvenient to have the orders of magnitude take their cue from the already-factorial Kg, and causes many, many errors, leading to this page potentially being seen as difficult to read. I'd like to hear any discussions or arguments against, other than "the standard is the Kg". Cpt ricard (talk) 16:23, 2 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree wholeheartedly. For example, at the beginning of the page it describes a quettagram as 10^30 grams, while further down the page inside the table it describes Jupiter as being 10^27 (quettagram).
 * This is a source of error and confusion.
 * Quettagrams are defined in grams, not Kilograms. Using the metric prefixes in this manner is confusing at best and an error at worst. Aboy021 (talk) 20:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

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Solar mass equivalents
Almost all of the entries above 1030 kg have the equivalent in solar masses in the comments. I think we should simply add a column for solar mass equivalent in these last tables. -Arch dude (talk) 18:49, 30 April 2018 (UTC)