From the breathtaking speed of light at 299,792,458 meters per second to the faint cosmic whispers of gravitational waves and the intricate blueprint of our own DNA, science provides us with the precise numbers that define the universe from the subatomic to the galactic scale.
Key Takeaways
- The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 meters per second, defined as the universal constant c in modern physics
- The Planck constant h is 6.62607015 × 10^-34 J⋅s, fundamental to quantum mechanics
- The gravitational constant G measures 6.67430 × 10^-11 m^3⋅kg^-1⋅s^-2, key to Newton's law of universal gravitation
- The molar mass constant M_u is exactly 1 g/mol in the 2019 SI redefinition
- Water's molar volume at STP is 22.41396954 × 10^-3 m³/mol
- Standard hydrogen electrode potential is defined as 0 V by convention
- DNA double helix has 10.4 base pairs per turn in B-form
- Human genome has approximately 3.2 billion base pairs
- Average human cell diameter is 10-30 micrometers
- Earth orbits Sun at average 29.78 km/s velocity
- Milky Way galaxy diameter spans 100,000 light-years
- Sun's mass is 1.989 × 10^30 kg, 99.86% of solar system
- Ocean covers 71% of Earth's surface area
- Mount Everest height 8,848.86 m above sea level
- Earth's core temperature averages 5,700°C, hotter than surface Sun
These universal physical and biological constants precisely define our natural world.
Astronomy
- Earth orbits Sun at average 29.78 km/s velocity
- Milky Way galaxy diameter spans 100,000 light-years
- Sun's mass is 1.989 × 10^30 kg, 99.86% of solar system
- Hubble constant H_0 ≈ 73.0 ± 1.0 km/s/Mpc from SH0ES
- Andromeda galaxy approaches Milky Way at 110 km/s, collision in 4.5 billion years
- Jupiter's Great Red Spot is 16,350 km wide, larger than Earth
- Light from Proxima Centauri takes 4.24 years to reach Earth
- Black hole in Cygnus X-1 has 14.8 solar masses
- Universe age estimated 13.8 billion years from Planck
- Pulsar PSR J1748-2446ad spins 716 times per second
- Betelgeuse radius 887 times Sun's
- Kepler-452b orbits in habitable zone 1,400 light-years away
- Cosmic web filaments span hundreds of megaparsecs
- Venus transits Sun every 243 years on average
- TRAPPIST-1 system has 7 Earth-sized planets, 40 light-years away
- Neutron star density 10^17 kg/m³
- Solar flare X28 class on Nov 4, 2003, strongest recorded
- Dark matter comprises 27% of universe mass-energy
- Gamma-ray burst GRB 080319B visible to naked eye 7.5 billion light-years
- Exoplanet count exceeds 5,000 as of 2023
- Voyager 1 at 23.5 billion km from Sun, heliopause crossed 2012
- Lunar recession rate 3.8 cm/year from Earth tides
- Supernova SN 1987A released 10^44 joules energy
- Sagittarius A* black hole mass 4.3 million solar masses
Astronomy Interpretation
Given the staggering scale of cosmic velocity, mass, and time, our entire human saga is just a faint, temporary flicker witnessed by a spinning rock on a routine orbit within a slow-motion car crash between two giant galaxies.
Biology
- DNA double helix has 10.4 base pairs per turn in B-form
- Human genome has approximately 3.2 billion base pairs
- Average human cell diameter is 10-30 micrometers
- Mitochondria produce 90% of cellular ATP via oxidative phosphorylation
- Photosynthesis fixes 100-115 billion tons of carbon annually
- E. coli doubles every 20 minutes under optimal conditions
- Human brain has about 86 billion neurons
- Insulin structure has 51 amino acids in two chains linked by disulfides
- Ribosome large subunit 50S in prokaryotes has 23S and 5S rRNA
- CRISPR-Cas9 editing efficiency reaches 80% in HEK293 cells
- Heart beats average 100,000 times per day pumping 7,500 liters blood
- Lung capacity averages 6 liters in adult males
- Red blood cells live 120 days circulating 250 billion/day
- Antibody affinity maturation increases Kd by 1000-fold via somatic hypermutation
- Plant cell wall cellulose microfibrils are 3-6 nm diameter
- Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has 12 million base pairs genome
- Coral reefs host 25% of marine species despite 0.1% ocean area
- Giraffe neck has 7 cervical vertebrae same as humans
- Butterfly wings have nanostructures causing iridescence via diffraction
- Tardigrades survive -272°C to 150°C temperatures
- Sperm whale produces loudest sound at 230 dB re 1 μPa
- Arabidopsis thaliana genome has 135 Mb and 27,655 genes
- HIV reverse transcriptase error rate is 10^-4 to 10^-5 per nucleotide
- Muscle fiber types: slow oxidative 50-80% in endurance athletes
- Enzyme turnover number k_cat for catalase is 4 × 10^7 s^-1
- Bacterial flagellum rotates at 100,000 rpm
- Human skin regenerates every 27 days via keratinocytes
- Octopus has 500 million neurons distributed in arms
- Venus flytrap closes in 0.1 seconds via action potentials
Biology Interpretation
While we elegantly spiral through 3.2 billion letters of life with 10.4 per turn, our cellular factories hum with atomic precision, our hearts drum a relentless rhythm to fuel a networked universe of 86 billion neurons, and our world is built and balanced on scales from the roaring depths of a whale to the silent, stubborn survival of a tardigrade—all whispering that the line between a single bacterium dividing and a butterfly's wing shimmering is far thinner and more astonishing than we dare to assume.
Chemistry
- The molar mass constant M_u is exactly 1 g/mol in the 2019 SI redefinition
- Water's molar volume at STP is 22.41396954 × 10^-3 m³/mol
- Standard hydrogen electrode potential is defined as 0 V by convention
- Diamond's density is 3.515 g/cm³ at 20°C
- pH scale logarithmic range for H+ concentration from 0 to 14 at 25°C
- Faraday constant F = 96,485.33212 C/mol for electrochemical equivalence
- Gas constant R = 8.314462618 J⋅mol⁻¹⋅K⁻¹ exactly
- Heat of fusion for water is 333.55 kJ/kg at 0°C
- Boiling point elevation constant K_b for water is 0.512 °C⋅kg/mol
- Henry's law constant for CO2 in water at 25°C is 29.41 L⋅atm/mol
- Ionic radius of Na+ (CN=6) is 102 pm in Shannon scale
- Electron affinity of chlorine is 349.0 kJ/mol
- Bond dissociation energy of H-H is 436.0 kJ/mol at 298 K
- Viscosity of water at 20°C is 1.0016 mPa⋅s
- Surface tension of water at 25°C is 71.99 mN/m
- Diffusion coefficient of O2 in water at 25°C is 2.42 × 10^-9 m²/s
- Partition coefficient logP for octanol/water of benzene is 2.13
- Acid dissociation constant pKa of acetic acid is 4.756 at 25°C
- Rate constant for SN2 reaction of CH3Br + OH- is 8.53 × 10^-6 M^-1 s^-1 at 20°C
- Activation energy for cis-trans isomerization of but-2-ene is 65 kcal/mol
- Refractive index of ethanol at 20°C (589 nm) is 1.361
- Dielectric constant of water at 25°C is 78.3553
- Osmotic pressure of 0.1 M NaCl at 25°C is approximately 4.92 atm
- Van der Waals a constant for CO2 is 3.640 L² bar/mol²
- Critical temperature of water is 647.096 K
- Molar heat capacity of graphite at constant pressure 298K is 8.527 J/mol·K
- Thermal conductivity of copper at 300K is 401 W/m·K
- Number of known chemical elements is 118 as of 2023
- Human body contains about 0.2 milligrams of gold, mostly in blood
Chemistry Interpretation
With the molar mass constant now formally tied to the kilogram, from diamond's density to the gold in our blood, chemistry proves it has both exact standards and wonderfully messy, contingent realities all figured out.
Earth Science
- Ocean covers 71% of Earth's surface area
- Mount Everest height 8,848.86 m above sea level
- Earth's core temperature averages 5,700°C, hotter than surface Sun
- Annual CO2 increase 2.6 ppm from Mauna Loa since 1960
- Richter scale measures earthquake magnitude logarithmically
- Amazon rainforest spans 5.5 million km²
- Gulf Stream transports 100 million m³/s warm water
- Antarctica ice volume 26.5 million km³
- Plate tectonics: Pacific Plate moves 10 cm/year northwest
- pH of ocean surface decreased 0.1 units since pre-industrial, 30% acidification
- Hurricane Katrina wind speeds peaked 175 mph in 2005
- Groundwater supplies 50% of drinking water worldwide
- El Niño Southern Oscillation cycle 2-7 years
- Dead Sea salinity 34%, lowest elevation land point -430 m
- Volcanic eruption VEI 7 Tambora 1815 caused year without summer
- Soil erosion rate 10-20 tons/ha/year agricultural land
- Aurora borealis caused by solar wind particles 100-500 km altitude
- Great Barrier Reef length 2,300 km
- Permafrost covers 24% Northern Hemisphere land
- Tsunami from 2004 Sumatra quake traveled 5,000 km
- Desertification affects 12 million ha/year
- Karst landscapes cover 10% ice-free continents
- Glacier National Park lost 2/3 glaciers since 1850
- Mangrove forests store 1,023 MgC/ha blue carbon
Earth Science Interpretation
Despite our planet being a masterclass in epic scale and terrifying power—from the boiling heart beneath our feet to the storms that dwarf our mountains—we scribble in the margins, acidifying oceans, melting ice, and stripping forests, treating this grand, living engine as a disposable notepad.
Physics
- The speed of light in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 meters per second, defined as the universal constant c in modern physics
- The Planck constant h is 6.62607015 × 10^-34 J⋅s, fundamental to quantum mechanics
- The gravitational constant G measures 6.67430 × 10^-11 m^3⋅kg^-1⋅s^-2, key to Newton's law of universal gravitation
- Avogadro's number is precisely 6.02214076 × 10^23 elementary entities per mole
- Elementary charge e is 1.602176634 × 10^-19 coulombs, basis for atomic charge quantization
- The Higgs boson mass is 125.10 ± 0.14 GeV/c² as measured by ATLAS at CERN in 2012
- Quantum entanglement was first demonstrated over 1,400 km in 2017 by Chinese scientists using Micius satellite
- Superfluid helium-4 transitions to zero viscosity at 2.17 K, known as the lambda point
- The fine-structure constant α is approximately 1/137.035999, dimensionless coupling constant
- LIGO detected gravitational waves from GW150914 merger of 36 and 29 solar mass black holes on Sept 14, 2015
- Electron mass is 9.1093837015 × 10^-31 kg, fundamental particle property
- Proton mass is 1.67262192369 × 10^-27 kg
- Neutron lifetime averages 879.4 ± 0.6 seconds from beam experiments
- Cosmic microwave background temperature is 2.72548 ± 0.00057 K
- Top quark mass is 172.69 ± 0.30 GeV/c² from Tevatron and LHC
- Fermi constant G_F is 1.1663787 × 10^-5 GeV^-2 in weak interaction
- Rydberg constant R_∞ is 10,973,731.568160 m^-1 for hydrogen spectra
- Boltzmann constant k is 1.380649 × 10^-23 J/K, redefined in 2019 SI
- Magnetic flux quantum Φ_0 is h/(2e) = 2.067834 × 10^-15 Wb
- Stefan-Boltzmann constant σ is 5.670374419 × 10^-8 W⋅m^-2⋅K^-4 for blackbody radiation
- First law of thermodynamics efficiency limit for Carnot engine between T_h and T_c is 1 - T_c/T_h
- Photoelectric effect threshold frequency for sodium is 5.1 × 10^14 Hz
- Compton wavelength of electron λ_e = h/(m_e c) = 2.42631023867 × 10^-12 m
- Hall effect mobility in graphene reaches 200,000 cm²/Vs at room temperature
- Casimir effect force between plates separated by d is - (π² ℏ c A)/(240 d⁴)
- Muon g-2 anomaly is 4.2 σ deviation from Standard Model prediction
- Thomson cross-section for electron-photon scattering is 6.6524587321 × 10^-29 m²
- Wien displacement law peak λ_max T = 2.8977729 × 10^-3 m⋅K for blackbody
- Nuclear binding energy per nucleon peaks at 8.79 MeV for iron-56
- Weak mixing angle sin²θ_W = 0.23129 ± 0.00005 from electroweak measurements
Physics Interpretation
The universe runs on a surprisingly precise set of dials—from the unwavering speed limit of light to the ghostly whispers of gravitational waves—each a stubborn, measurable fact that refuses to bend to our whims, yet somehow conspires to make coffee, stars, and us possible.
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