• Question: how many atoms would it take to build a ladder to the moon

    Asked by redbloodsami to Carol, Ellie, John, Philip, Rebecca on 2 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Carol White

      Carol White answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      So I had to work this one out….. here goes!

      Let’s pretend we’re making a human ladder (way more fun!)… If we use men who are 2m tall only (just to make things easier!) and the distance to the moon is 384,392 km…. we would need 192196000 humans!

      Now I found out that the average 2m tall man is made up of 7000000000000000000000000000 (7 followed by 27 zeros) atoms….. wow!

      So our human ladder would have 192196000 x 7000000000000000000000000000 atoms, which equals….

      1345372000000000000000000000000000000 atoms!

      Ta dah!

    • Photo: John Welford

      John Welford answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      I worked it out in a different way to Carol, by trying to use as few atoms as possible.

      So I made a rope rather than a ladder, and I made it one atom thick (to save on atoms). Atoms are about 0.0000000001 metres in diameter. The distance to the moon is about 384400000 metres, so the number of atoms required is:
      384400000000000000
      (3844 with 14 zeros after it)

      Obviously this couldn’t actually be built though!

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