A nanometer is used to measure things that are very small. Atoms and molecules, the smallest pieces of everything around us, are measured in nanometers. For example a water molecule is less than one nanometer. A typical germ is about 1,000 nanometers.

What is an example of a nanometer?

It's difficult to imagine just how small that is, so here are some examples: A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. A strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter. ... A human hair is approximately 80,000- 100,000 nanometers wide.

Is nanometer commonly used?

A nanometer (nm) is a metric unit of spatial measurement that is one billionth (1×10-9) of a meter. It is commonly used in nanotechnology, the building of extremely small machines.