Here's an old, old, question, but this time with a surprise twist. The question is — and I bet you asked it when you were 8 years old and sitting on a beach: Which are there more of — grains of sand on the Earth or stars in the sky? Show
Obviously, grains and stars can't be counted, not literally. But you can guestimate. Science writer David Blatner, in his new book Spectrums, says a group of researchers at the University of Hawaii, being well-versed in all things beachy, tried to calculate the number of grains of sand.
 They said, if you assume a grain of sand has an average size and you calculate how many grains are in a teaspoon and then multiply by all the beaches and deserts in the world, the Earth has roughly (and we're speaking very roughly here) 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand, or seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion grains. That's a lot of grains.
OK, so how about stars? Well, to my amazement, it turns out that when you look up, even on a clear and starry night, you won't see very many stars. Blatner says the number is a low, low "several thousand," which gives the sand grain folks a landslide victory. But we're not limiting ourselves to what an ordinary stargazer can see. Our stargazer gets a Hubble telescope and a calculator, so now we can count distant galaxies, faint stars, red dwarfs, everything we've ever recorded in the sky, and boom! Now the population of stars jumps enormously, to 70 thousand million, million, million stars in the observable universe (a 2003 estimate), so that we've got multiple stars for every grain of sand — which means, sorry, grains, you are nowhere near as numerous as the stars. So that makes stars the champions of numerosity, no? Ummm, no. This is when Blatner hits us with his sucker punch. Yes, he says, the number of stars in the heavens is "an unbelievably large number," but then, very matter-of-factly, he adds that you will find the same number of molecules "in just ten drops of water."
Say what? Let me repeat: If you took 10 drops of water (not extra-big drops, just regular drops, I'm presuming) and counted the number of H2O molecules in those drops, you'd get a number equal to all the stars in the universe. This is amazing to me. For some reason, when someone says million, billion or trillion, I see an enormous pile of something, a grand scene, great sweeps of desert sand, twirling masses of stars. Big things come from lots of stuff; little things from less stuff. That seems intuitive. But that's wrong. Little things, if they're really little, can pile up just like big things, and yes, says Blatner, water molecules "really are that small." So next time I look up at the sky at all those stars, I will be impressed, of course, by the great numbers that are out there. But I will remind myself that at the other end of the scale, in the nooks and crannies of the physical world, in the teeniest of places, there are equally vast numbers of teenier things. We are surrounded by vastness, high and low, and either way, as Blatner's book says, we "can't handle the biggitude." David Blatner's forthcoming book is called Spectrums: Our Mind-Boggling Universe, from Infinitesmal to Infinity. A cup is typically thought of as being 250mL. So, that cup would have at least 2 million grains. On the basis of that calculation, a cubic metre of sand would have no less than 8 thousand million particles. A handful of sand contains about 10,000 grains [sic; 100,000 rather], more than the number of stars we can see with the naked eye on a clear night. How many grains are in sand?If you assume a grain of sand has an average size and you calculate how many grains are in a teaspoon and then multiply by all the beaches and deserts in the world, the Earth has roughly (and we’re speaking very roughly here) 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand, or seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion grains. How many grains of sand are in a teaspoon of sand?So depending in how much the sand had been ground up makes a big difference un how many grains of sand there would be. 23,584 for a level teaspoon. How much space would 1 billion grains of sand take up?If it is a billion grains the weight would be approximately 11 tonnes. The specific gravity of quartz is 2.65. The volume of the grains would be 4.15 cubic meters. How big is a million grains of sand?A medium-sized grown-up woman has about 18 square feet, and a man has more than 20 sq ft. Each grain is 1/1,000th of a foot wide, so it takes 1,000 x 1,000 or about 1 million grains of sand to cover just 1 square foot. How many grains of sand are in a bucket?Bucket contains 6.5×109 6.5 × 10 9 total grains of sand. How do you measure grains of sand?“Scientists define sand as grains that measure from 1/400 inch (0.06 millimeter) to 1/12 inch (2.1 millimeters) in diameter.” How many grains of sand are in every beach on Earth?Earth’s beaches contain roughly 5,000 billion billion—aka, 5 sextillion—grains of sand. We’ve now estimated that there are about 8,000,000,000 = 8×10^9 grains of sand per cubic meter of beach, and that the Earth contains roughly 700,000,000,000 = 7×10^11 cubic meters of beach. How many grains of sand are there in a desert?There are 23 deserts on Earth. But to give you an answer I can tell you that mathematicians crunched the numbers regarding grains of sand on the planet (that includes deserts and beaches) and their final estimate was roughly 7 quintillion, 5 hundred quadrillion grains of sand. Are there more galaxies than grains of sand?However, it is likely that there are five to ten times most stars than sand on the beaches. In 2016 researchers, observing images from the Hubble Space Telescope stated that there could be more than 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, which is ten times more than the highest number expected. How many grains of sand are in Bondi beach?This means 1 square metre of beach, down to a depth of 3m should hold about 163 billion grains of sand. Are there more trees than grains of sand?Earth has roughly (and we’re speaking very roughly here) 7.5 x 10 To the18 grains of sand, or seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion grains. There are about three trillion trees on the planet and they play a major role in producing the oxygen we all breathe. How many grains of sand is a trillion?Count out 1,000 grains of sand, then spread 999,000 more – your guess! – just make sure that you have a compact manlier of sand 1,000 grains on a side. That’s 10 to the 6th, and a trillion is 10 to the 12th. How much space does a billion grains of rice take up?1 billion grains volume = 19 cubic meters. Assume: conical mound, 45-degree sloping sides. 1 billion grains mound = 2.63m tall (8.62ft) diameter 5.26m (17.26ft) How many grains of sand are in a cubic inch?So there are about 9,800 ideal coarse-sized sand grains in a cubic inch. What are grains of sand made of?Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. How many grains of sand are in a liter?A litre is a 100mm cube. That would mean 200 x 200 x 200 grains in a litre. That is 8 million. How many grains of sand are in a cubic foot?Now put the vertical dimension of 1,000 grains high = 1 billion grains of sand (one cubic foot). How many grains of salt are in a bathtub?A pinch is a thousand grains of salt; A cup holds a million grains of salt; A bathtub holds a billion grains of salt; and a classroom holds a trillion grains of salt. How long is a grain of sand?Sand is a naturally occurring, finely divided rock, comprising particles or granules ranging in size from 0.0625 (or 1⁄16) to 2 millimeters. An individual particle in this range size is termed a sand grain. The next smaller size class in geology is silt: particles below 0.0625 mm down to 0.004 mm in size. What is the circumference of a grain of sand?
What does 1 grain of sand weigh?With tremendous variety in the size of grain and the component material, grains of sand weigh an average of 0.0044 grams. Is there more planets than grains of sand?The result is about 10^24 planets in the universe. That’s about 100,000 times as many as grains of sand. It’s one septillion planets! The numbers are subject to huge estimation errors and are both “astronomical.” One estimate has us with 7.5*10^18 grains of sand on Earth. How big is the universe compared to a grain of sand?We Must Go Smaller. If our Milky Way galaxy, which is around 125,000ly across was to be shrunken down to a grain of sand, the observable universe would be roughly 372 meters (1220 feet) wide, not too bad. Are there more sand than stars?I got a surprise. The numbers pretty much matched. There are about the same number of stars in the observable universe as there are sand grains in all of Earth’s beaches. How much sand is in the ocean?Earth’s beaches contain roughly 5,000 billion billion-aka, 5 sextillion-grains of sand. We’ve now estimated that there are about 8,000,000,000 equal to 8×10^9 grains of sand per cubic meter of beach, and that the Earth contains roughly 700,000,000,000 equal to 7×10^11 cubic meters of beach. How much sand is in the Sahara Desert?How much sand is in the Sahara desert? Only 20% of the Sahara desert is covered in sand. There are approximately 1.504 septillion grains of sand. How many years would it take to travel to the nearest star?Travel Time If Voyager were to travel to Proxima Centauri, at this rate, it would take over 73,000 years to arrive. If we could travel at the speed of light, an impossibility due to Special Relativity, it would still take 4.22 years to arrive! How old is a grain of sand?The grain of sand is a tiny crystal of zircon, a kind of semi-precious mineral comprising the elements zirconium, silicon and oxygen, usually used as a diamond substitute in cheap jewellery. It is 4.4 billion years old. How many grains of sand are in galaxies?The number they calculated was seven quintillion five quadrillion (that’s 7.5 followed by seventeen zeros or 7.5 billion billion) sand grains! How many grains of sand would it take to fill the Grand Canyon?1 grain of sand occupies approximately 1 cubic milimeter. Thus, the Grand Canyon could hold roughly 4e19 grains of sand. How many galaxies are there in a grain of sand?Astronomers estimate there exist roughly 10,000 stars for each grain of sand on Earth. That’s a lot of stars. Astronomers recently discovered the origin of sand grains. For years, they believed that only sun-like stars created lots of carbon and silicon dust, and the silicon dust is the source of sand. Where does the sand come from?Sand forms when rocks break down from weathering and eroding over thousands and even millions of years. Rocks take time to decompose, especially quartz (silica) and feldspar. Often starting thousands of miles from the ocean, rocks slowly travel down rivers and streams, constantly breaking down along the way. How many stars are there in the grains of sand compared to the universe?That’s 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars versus 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand! How many grains of rice would fill the Earth?2E63 grains of rice is a lot. Quite a lot. Enough to feed 100 tons of rice to every single human on Planet Earth. What does 1 million grains of sand look like?Each grain is 1/1,000th of a foot wide, so it takes 1,000 x 1,000 or about 1 million grains of sand to cover just 1 square foot. That's just a thin layer of single grains…if you want a few inches of sand, you need hundreds of layers, giving us over a billion grains for a grown-up!
How many grains are in a handful of sand?A handful of sand contains about 10,000 grains, more than the number of stars we can see with the naked eye on a clear night.
What does 1 grain of sand weigh?The weight of a Grain of Sand is about 0.0044 grams. With tremendous variety in the size of grain and the component material, grains of sand weigh an average of 0.0044 grams. In 2007, a team of seven in Myrtle Beach created the world's tallest sandcastle, which measured 15.10 m (49.55 ft) in height.
How many grains are in sand?The volume of sand was obtained by multiplying the length of the world's beaches by their average width and depth. The number they calculated was seven quintillion five quadrillion (that's 7.5 followed by seventeen zeros or 7.5 billion billion) sand grains!
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How many grains of sand are in a pinch?
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