A comparison of times would also be nice. And dimensionless numbers, like the number of stars in the Galaxy, the number of cells in the human body, and the largest known prime. --AxelBoldt
And the population of various countries and cities. --LA2
I think the example column should be placed immediately after the column of dimensions that it's an example of. As it is now, it's unclear what dimension things in the example column are an example of; for example, is the Sun an example of something that is 109m in diameter, or is it an example of something with an area of 1018m2? This gets even more confusing when mass is considered as well. I'll move it over and see if it looks okay.
There, fixed. If everybody hates this, revert it; otherwise I'm going to add empty example columns for the other measurements as well for future expansion. :)
Sorry but this bit of Wiki just doesn't do the business for me. I know that I should put the effort in to sort it but I just don't have the confidence to replace all this stuff. Could we get some more views?
First, why is this list of different units of measurement on a page called "orders of magnitude"? The latter does not mean "units of measurement." Why not put it on a [units of measurement]? (or better, [listing of units of measurement]?) page?
Second, there are names like 1e-15 m. For someone who wants to know what "1e-15 m" means, in the article, we are told: "To help compare different orders of magnitudes this page lists lengths between 10-15 m and 10-14 m." This isn't very helpful for someone who doesn't know what "1e-15 m" means in the first place. For instance, what does that mean, using decimal places? Yes, any well-educated person knows how to figure it out; but a Wikipedia article about X, remember, is always for the benefit of a (perhaps theoretical) person who doesn't know much at all about X.
Third, I generally agree with the person who said (somewhere) that the titles of these articles could perhaps be stated in more clearly recognizable words and numbers, without symbols, e.g.: [1,000,000,000 meters]? (or metres, if you insist). What's wrong with that, at least with the magnitudes close to 1?
Fourth, I think the simplest, single examples should be given for each unit of measurement at each order of magnitude. Again, the whole point here is not to make a pretty table but to make concepts clear to people who do not understand them. If we need several tables, grand, let's make them.
In general, try to bear in mind that our task here is to make concepts as simple as possible--it is not to build a merely pretty-and-clever system of webpages. Prettiness and cleverness are good but must be entirely subsumed under the task of making concepts clear to those who do not have them. --LMS