Describe One Part Per Million?

Question

If you were making a presentation to an audience of non-scientists how would describe 1 PPM. I was hoping to conger up something most people could quickly grasp.

Thanks to Dances for the spelling correction. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with spell checker!

Answer 1

One 1/2" diameter marble in an 8' x 10' x 8' room filled with marbles

One character on one of 200 sheets of paper that have 5000 characters printed on each page

Answer 2

0.1% is one part per thousand (ppt). 1 ppm is 0.0001%. This can be a mass value or a molar value. To an environmental chemist, 1 ppm = 1 mg/Liter. In a gas analysis, this would be 1 mL/m^3.

Answer 3

You have a million marbles laid out on the floor all of them are white except one which is green, that is one ppm

Answer 4

San Diego, Detroit, Dallas and San Jose are all US Cities with about a million people. If you visit one of these you are one part in a million!

Answer 5

You have 1 dollar in your pocket?
Well, you are one part per million from being a millionaire.
That'll grab them!

or

One black sand grain in a handfull of white sand.

I like the first one.

Answer 6

it's like percentages...except per million rather than per hundred. it's used just like percentages but who understands .0001%?...that would be 1ppm.

It makes it easier to describe small fractions.

It sometimes is used in quality control to describe error frequency...such as 15 parts out of every million produced are defective. That would be a failure rate of 15ppm.

Answer 7

You're on a street corner in New York.
You're late for an important date.
It's rush hour.
It's pouring rain.
How many of the Cabs that pass will stop for you.

Answer 8

For every million parts of something, ONE of them is something else.

BTW - the word is "conjure."