order of magnitude

English

Examples

Something that is 2 orders of magnitude larger is 100 times larger, something that is 3 orders of magnitude larger is 1000 times larger, and something that is 6 orders of magnitude larger is a million times larger, because = 100, = 1000, and = a million.

Noun

order of magnitude (plural orders of magnitude)

  1. (mathematics) The class of scale or magnitude of any amount, where each class contains values of a fixed ratio (most often 10) to the class preceding it.
    • 2011, Enrico Fermi, Wikisource (translator), Concerning a Contradiction between the Electrodynamic and Relativistic Theory of Electromagnetic Mass, 1922, Enrico Fermi, Über einen Widerspruch zwischen der elektrodynamischen und relativistischen Theorie der elektromagnetischen Masse, Physikalische Zeitschrift, v 23, pp 340-344,
      However, we notice that although this contraction is of order of magnitude , it changes the most important terms of electromagnetic mass, i.e, the rest mass.
    • 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 8:
      However, this pales to insignificance against the massive volume of spoken language, for with over 500 patrons, any given second of the lunch hour would result in a spoken word count in the thousands, and the whole lunch hour would see a word count orders of magnitude larger than 3000.

Translations

See also

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