View Full Version : Our place in the vast scheme of things


Jamie
13-11-2003, 00:25
Gain some perspective on our place in the vast scheme of things -
a quick slideshow-

"View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then
move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude
until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After
that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic
world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA
and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons."

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/

Lindseyw
13-11-2003, 07:21
Eh ???

Agent Dan
13-11-2003, 11:25
Originally posted by Lindseyw
Eh ???

upholder
13-11-2003, 11:47
Saw something similar to this on TV years ago, certainly makes you think.

Eh?

Damon
13-11-2003, 13:16
That's pretty nifty. There used to be an animated film that worked in a very similar way - it was shown on telly every now and then in the seventies, and I think a lot of people probably saw it at school.

I think it was called 'Cosmic Zoom' - it started right out in space then zoomed right down onto this boy sat in a boat, then continued zooming into his arm, where a mosquito was sitting. The zoom continued right into the molecular structure of the insect, then it ground to a halt and zoomed right out into the depths of space again.

In fact, there's yet another version of it here, which includes a bit more explanatory text:

http://aspire.cosmic-ray.org/labs/cosmic_zoom/

upholder
13-11-2003, 18:33
Originally posted by Damon
That's pretty nifty. There used to be an animated film that worked in a very similar way - it was shown on telly every now and then in the seventies, and I think a lot of people probably saw it at school.


That's the one :thumbsup:

Jamie
13-11-2003, 18:50
Cool ...

I used to think about this quite a bit .... scale !!

The universe being as infinitely big as it is infinitesimally small .. !?

Phanerothyme
13-11-2003, 19:05
hmmm. It's fine from the Milky way down to the DNA.

They have a nice continuous shot film of this at Techniquest in Cardiff.