Originally Posted by billangiep
Thanks Max, I learn something every day....
Another commonly used unit of length is the Angstrom (1 Angstrom = 10-10 m = 0.1 nanometer). Atoms are roughly Angstroms in size (a hydrogen atom is about 1 A in diameter, a carbon atom is about 2 A in diameter). You might read about Angstroms, and you should just immediately think of them as a tenth of a nanometer.
I'm sorry-that was a "ball park" figure. The general rule of thumb is it takes 3 monolayers of any material to be visible. 3 layers of whatever atoms, that is.
I hope you get my point-the eye can detect extremely small imperfections.