The true size of a blue whale
Two buses, fourteen human heights and an orca that suddenly looks small.
Read the story →A visual encyclopedia of everything
Understand the thing.
Feel the scale.
See what something is, how big it really is, and what happens when you put it next to the rest of the world.
Start somewhere familiar
A bee. A coin. A common scale.
01
Honeybee1.5 cmBody length
02
US quarter2.426 cmDiameter
Both marked spans share one linear scale. Artwork keeps its proportions; poses and surface detail are illustrative.
A little perspective
The diameter of US quarter is about 1.62 times the body length of Honeybee.
Measurements, assumptions & sources +
Honeybee
A 15 mm worker honeybee (Apis mellifera), at the upper end of the cited 10–15 mm worker range. Body length excludes antennae, legs and wings. The 100 mg mass is a separate illustrative assumption.
University of Michigan — Apis mellifera
The marked body length is calibrated. Unmeasured illustration details are representative.
US quarter
A US quarter: 24.26 mm nominal diameter and 5.67 g mass. The illustrated relief is representative; the circular rim is the measured span.
US Mint — circulating coin specifications
The marked diameter is calibrated. Unmeasured illustration details are representative.
Side by side
Unexpected neighbours.
A closer look
Follow a comparison a little further.
The scale of everything
From almost nothing
to almost everything.
Cross 61 orders of magnitude. Start with a bee and travel all the way to the edge of the observable universe.
Take the journey ↗
Pick a dimension
Just how…?
01Length & distance149 quantities to put in perspective02Area & space109 quantities to put in perspective03Volume & capacity103 quantities to put in perspective04Mass117 quantities to put in perspective05Weight & gravity21 quantities to put in perspective06Speed53 quantities to put in perspective07Temperature44 quantities to put in perspective08Time52 quantities to put in perspective09Energy40 quantities to put in perspective10Power37 quantities to put in perspective11Data & storage36 quantities to put in perspective12Space & everythingOne journey across the universe
Same you. Different gravity.
What would you
weigh on Mars?
Your mass stays the same. The pull of a different world changes everything.
Try it with your mass ↗
Put your perspective to the test
Guess first. Then see the real scale.
Play with real measurements and calibrated illustrations.