Orders of magnitude

Posted by Bookworm on November 01, 2004

In Reply to: Orders of magnitude posted by Jose Carlos on November 01, 2004

: "Companies with just a toehold in the field of nanotechnology thus eagerly embrace their nano side.
: For example, U.S. Global Aerospace provides
: security devices for passenger and
: military vehicles. After it developed a secure
: cockpit door that used nanofiber technology,
: company executives quickly changed
: the firm's name to U.S. Global Nanospace,
: a shrinkage of 14 orders of magnitude."

: Please, can anyone explain what these 14 orders of magnitude are about? Thanks.

: Jose Carlos

Order of magnitude is an indication that something is changed (reduced or grown) by a factor of 10. I'm not sure how they figured 14, though. Nano implies 10^-9, so IMO, that would only be a reduction of 9 orders of magnitude. (I am assuming that U.S. Global Aerospace would represent 10^0 (i.e. 1).