Historically, science has made great strides because someone cared to ask,
how much? This is my concerted effort towards numerical literacy in the modern
world. Assigning tangible quantities is immensely effective towards understanding
the metaphorical "gravity of the situation".
All values are approximate and meant to facilitate back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Length
Neutrophil (White Blood Cells) - 12-15 microns
The Great Pyramid of Giza - 150m high
Eiffel Tower - 300m high
Burj Khalifa - 830m
Golden Gate Park - 3 mi
ISS Orbital Height - 250 mi / 420 km
Astronomical
Farthest object captured by the Hubble Telescope GN-z11 - 13.4 billion light years
Area
Golden Gate Park - 1000 acres / 400 ha
Mass
Large Shipping Container - 26 t / 30 US t
Time
ISS Revolution - 90 min
Historical
Oldest stone tools - 2.6 million years ago e.g. the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania
Fire-treating stones - 164000 years ago
Oldest lime products - 9600 BCE, Gobekli Tepe
Potter’s wheel - 5500 BCE
Cotton - 6000 BCE
Wool - 6000 BCE, clothes 4000 BCE
Glassmaking - 5000 BCE
Iron - 1200 BCE, popular usage
Printing Press - 1440
Founding of Manila - 1571, marks substantial, direct and continuous trade between Asia and Americas
Great Fire of London - 1666, pretty much forced the rebuilding that led to modern London
Modernization of Paris - 1852-70, directed by Eugene Haussmann
World's first encyclopedia - 1751-1777, edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond D'Alembert
First modern record of a "birthday" - 1772
First electric elevator - 1889, Otis
Color Presses - 1890s
First mass car ownership - 1908, Ford Model-T
Healthcare
Antiretroviral therapy (ART) - 1996
Percentages
Percentage of total physical money in the world - < 10% (7% as of 2020)