Macroscopic
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Macroscopic means physical objects that are measurable and can be seen by the naked eye.
When one uses macroscopic for abstract objects, one thinks of the world as we see it without any help. Lengths scales are called macroscopic if they are fall in the range of more or less 1 mm up to 1 km.
One may use the term macroscopic also for a "larger view", namely a view only available from a large perspective. A macroscopic position could be considered the "big picture".
[edit] Examples
- A macroscopic view of a ball is just that: a ball. A microscopic view could reveal a thick round skin seemingly composed entirely of cracks and fissures (as viewed through a microscope) or, further down in scale, a collection of molecules in the rough shape of a sphere.
[edit] Macroscopy in physics
In physics macroscopy is a relative term. If one looks at a galaxy, a star is microscopic in comparison with the whole galaxy, even if it is many, many orders of magnitude larger than us.