A Little More Scientific “Magic”

Robert Oldershaw
2 min readApr 10, 2018

(1) Take the radius range for atoms (1.6 x 10^-8 to 6.4 x 10^-5 cm).

Multiply by the “magic” number 5.2 x 10¹⁷ .

Get the radius range for stars (8.3 x 10⁹ to 3.3 x 10¹³ cm).

(2) Take the spin period of an excited subatomic nucleus (~5 x 10^-20 sec).

Multiply by the “magic” number 5.2 x 10¹⁷ .

Get the spin period of a typical pulsar (~0.03 sec).

Now multiply again by the “magic” number 5.2 x 10¹⁷.

Get the spin period of a typical galaxy (~4.3 x 10⁸ years).

(3) Take the median radius for a subatomic nucleus (~4 x 10^-13 cm).

Multiply by the “magic” number 5.2 x 10¹⁷.

Get the order of magnitude radius for a neutron star (~2 km).

Multiply again by the “magic”number 5.2 x 10¹⁷ .

Get the typical radius for a galaxy (~1.0 x 10²³ cm).

Curious about where that “magic” number comes from? Want to see about 20 scientific “magic” tricks like these? See Paper #1 of “Selected Papers” at http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw .

And if you have not seen this:

I think you should.

--

--

No responses yet