How Far is Far?
Author: Sukanya Sinha
Illustrator: Vishnu M Nair
2
Today, we will climb up a ladder together. It is a rather unusual ladder. In this ladder, the
distance between the rungs gets bigger and BIGGER and BIGGER as you climb up
the steps, growing 10 times at each step. Sometimes we will climb one step at a time and
at other times we will skip many steps at one go.
The funny thing is that we are not even sure which the last step is or whether the steps
go on forever. Let the exciting journey begin!
3
Step 0: 1 metre
What do a five year old boy, a
cricket bat and a newborn baby
elephant have in common?
All of them have a height of
about 1 metre (or 1m for short)!
It would be awkward to say that
the ceiling of a room is 3 baby
elephants high. So we make the
sensible choice of saying that the
height of the ceiling is 3 metres.
4
Step 1: 10 metres
Now that you have a feel for the size of one metre, we are ready to climb to the next step
of our ladder, at 10 metres. A three storey building or a mango tree is roughly 10 metres
high. A cricket pitch is about twice that length.
Can you think of other objects that are about 10 m long or high?
5
6
Step 2: 100 metres
Have you noticed that with every
step we add a zero to the right of
the number we had before and
the step number matches the
number of zeroes? Keep track of
that as we climb along.
If you have run the 100m race on
school sports day, or watched
sprinters do it on TV, you know
exactly how far that is. Now
imagine if the 100m track stood
up! That would be about the
height of two Gol Gumbaz*-es.
*The Gol Gumbaz in Bijapur, Karnataka, is the
tomb of Mohammed Adil Shah. When it was
built in 1656, it had the largest dome in the
world. It held the record until 1881!
7
Step 3: 1000 metres
Thousand metres has a special
name - it is called 1 kilometre or
1 km.
You would cover this distance if
you ran the 100 metre race 10
times - phew! You would need to
climb about 9 km to reach the
top of Mount Everest.
8
Step 6: 1,000,000 metres
Now let's skip 2 steps and go to step 6, which has six zeroes to the right of 1.
The distance from the northern tip of India in Kashmir to the southern tip at
Kanyakumari is about 4 times this distance, or 4 times 1,000,000 m, or 4,000,000 m.
Because 4,000,000 m is quite a mouthful, we usually say 4000 km, which is the same
thing.
9
10
Step 8: 100,000,000 metres
How far away is the bright,
beautiful moon?
It is right there on the 8th step of
our distance ladder at about 4
times 100,000,000 m, or 400,000
km away from the earth!
11
Step 11: 100,000,000,000 metres
Let us skip two more steps and race to the blazing hot Sun. How far away is it? It is about 100,000,000 km
PLUS another 50,000,000 km. That is very, VERY far away indeed!
But the far, far away sun still lights up the world and makes us sweat in summer.
Amazing, isn't it?
12
Last Step???
Is there a last step on the ladder? We don’t know yet! But with powerful telescopes,
scientists have been able to see way beyond the sun. The farthest object that they have
been able to spot is on the 26th step, 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 m away! That
is SERIOUSLY FAR!
Maybe when you grow up, you can discover something even further away, on the 28th
or 29th step. Isn’t that an exciting thought?
13
14
Fun with Measuring
The following activity done in a classroom setting is a great way to give children a feel for large distances and
can engage the children either in a single group, or in teams.

1. Ask the children to cut long strips (each about an inch wide) from old newspapers.

2. Ask them to stick the strips end to end with tape or glue to make longer strips, until they get a strip that is 1
metre long (they can use a measuring tape for this).

3. Now ask the children to use this 1 m long strip as a measure and make 10 similar strips and stick them end
to end to make a 10 m long strip. They can lie down next to this strip, head to head and feet to feet, and see
how many of them it takes to make 10 m.

4. They can then stick ten 10 m strips together to make a 100 m strip that goes round the classroom many
times.

5. What about a 1 km strip? How many times does that go around the classroom? Which team was able to
create a 1 km long strip fastest?
15
Notes for Parents & Teachers:
- When writing down big numbers with lots of zeroes after the 1, it is very easy for children - and adults! - to
make mistakes. That is why the 'Powers of 10' notation is such a useful thing. Through this book, children can
be taught how to use it - all they need to do is to count the number of zeroes to the right of the 1, and write
that number as a superscript of 10. For instance, 1000, which has 3 zeroes after the 1, can be written as 103.
And 10000000 (7 zeroes after the 1), can be compactly written as 107. Simple!
- In this book, we stopped our 'How far is far?' game at the Sun. If you want to take the game further, you may
want to bring in the nearest star beyond the Sun, Proxima Centauri, which is 1016 m away from the Sun. Or the
distance from one end of the Milky Way to another, which is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (or 1021) m!
- One thing you should know is that the distances that are given in the book are approximate, not exactly
accurate. For example, 3984 km is given as 4000 km. This is not 'unscientific'. Rough estimates are very useful
in science! Maybe you can do an activity with the kids to emphasize this. Is the length of a pencil closer to 101
cm or 102 cms? Is the weight of the schoolbus closer to 103 kgs or 104 kgs? Let the children come up with their
own questions for their classmates too.
16
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Story Attribution:
This story: How Far is Far? is written by Sukanya Sinha . © Storyweaver, Pratham Books , 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license.
Other Credits:
This book was first published on StoryWeaver, Pratham Books. The development of this book has been supported by Oracle Giving Initiative. This book was created
for StoryWeaver, Pratham Books, with the support of Roopa Pai (Guest Editor) and Kaveri Gopalakrishnan (Art Director).
Illustration Attributions:
Cover page: Boy on ladder, clouds and hills in the background, by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY
4.0 license. Page 2: Boy looking at ladder, by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 3:
Background colour pale, by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 4: Boy, elephant and
cricket bat, by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 5: Background colour pale, by
Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 6: Mango tree, fallen building and cricket pitch,
by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 7: Gol Gumbaz and running race, by Vishnu M
Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 8: Man setting out to climb Mount Everest, by Vishnu M
Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 9: Background colour pale, by Vishnu M Nair ©
Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 10: India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, by Vishnu M Nair ©
Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 11: Moon and Earth, by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham
Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license.
This book was made possible by Pratham Books' StoryWeaver platform. Content under Creative
Commons licenses can be downloaded, translated and can even be used to create new stories
​‐
provided you give appropriate credit, and indicate if changes were made. To know more about this,
and the full terms of use and attribution, please visit the following link.
Disclaimer: https://www.storyweaver.org.in/terms_and_conditions
Some rights reserved. This book is CC
​-BY
​-4.0 licensed. You can copy, modify, distribute
and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
For full terms of use and attribution, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The development of this book has been supported by Oracle
Giving Initiative.
Illustration Attributions:
Page 12: Blazing, hot sun, by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 13: Background
colour pale, by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 14: Boy and elephant gazing into
the distance , by Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 15: Background colour pale, by
Vishnu M Nair © Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license. Page 16: Background colour pale, by Vishnu M Nair ©
Storyweaver, Pratham Books, 2016. Some rights reserved. Released under CC BY 4.0 license.
This is a Level 3 book for children who are ready to read on their own.
(English)
How Far is Far?
If you thought your friend's house on the other side of town was far
away, you have clearly not read this book. Climb the Magic Math Ladder
to get from where you are to the top of Mount Everest, to Kashmir, to
the moon, the Sun, and ultimately, to the edge of the Universe, which is
very, very, VERY far away indeed. Ready, steady, go!
Pratham Books goes digital to weave a whole new chapter in the realm of multilingual children's stories. Knitting together children, authors, illustrators and
publishers. Folding in teachers, and translators. To create a rich fabric of openly licensed multilingual stories for the children of India
​​ and the world. Our unique
online platform, StoryWeaver, is a playground where children, parents, teachers and librarians can get creative. Come, start weaving today, and help us get a
book in every child's hand!