I'm a bit at a loss as to what importance the length of the universe to the metrication discussion. Yes, a metric unit was used and it made the number look and appear digestible compared to what it would be in English units. but don't you think the average person on the street needs to know what the kilometer is before worrying about yottameters?
Priorities folks, priorities! Jerry ________________________________ From: Bill Hooper <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 11:07:01 PM Subject: [USMA:44134] Re: 285 yottametres On Mar 24 , at 1:15 AM, Pat Naughtin wrote: I want to write: 'The Universe is approximately 285 yottametres in diameter.' Is this correct? There probably IS NO firmly established measurement of estimate of that distance. I googled diameter of the universe and found several useful sites. One was this one (below) which I'd suggest starting with, It contains 12 different estimates of the size of the universe, all reduced to a value in billions of light years for ease of comparison. The site is: http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/CarmenBissessar.shtml It gives most values of 20 to 30 billion light years, but some are considerably larger and a few smaller. Using the 20 to 30 billion l.y. figures I get the following: A light year (l.y.) is 9.46 x 10^15 m. (Ref. Any decent physics text book like the one in front of me).) 20 billion l.y. is equal to 20 x 10^9 l.y. which, by multiplying the above two figures, gives us (20 x 10^9 l.y.) x (9.46 x 10^15 m/l.y.) or 20 billion l.y. = 190 x 10^24 m or, finally: 20 billion l.y. = 190 Ym Similarly, 30 billion l.y. = 280 Ym I hope this gives you an answer you can use. Just be aware that it is really unknown and all such sizes are estimates based on some widely different criteria. Regards, Bill Hooper Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA ========================== SImplification Begins With SI. ==========================
