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The Shortest One There Is


PaperBoy

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Did you know there's actually a shortest possible length in the universe? At least there is supposedly, scientists believe we'll never be able to create any sort of measuring or analyzing device short enough to view it. It's called a Planck length and it equals 1.61619997E-35 m. It's derived from Planck's constant (you know, E=hf), the gravitational constant, and the speed of light.

One cool way to think about it is this: imagine a .1 mm dot, about the smallest length the naked human eye can see. Now, turn that dot into a universe of its own. Inside that universe, a Planck length would be another .1 mm dot. Pretty cool right? This means that a .1 mm dot is almost exactly half way between the observable universe and a Planck length.

Some scientists believe that a Planck length is the exact length at which spacetime becomes dominated by the laws of quantum mechanics, and thus any length less than it would be impossible to determine. Others also believe that it's related to the size a black hole enlarges each time it takes in matter.

Though currently scientists can't really do anything at all with this information, it's still pretty cool to know that there is a rock bottom to feeling small. :'C

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