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Usbport
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Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 8:07 AM

When I was in college a number of years ago, the Physics Dept showed a movie called "Powers of Ten". It was a fascinating look at distances from the human scale, to the whole Universe, then down to the size of quarks and the Plank length.

The Website APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) put up a new, interactive version that is really mind blowing. It takes a few seconds to load. Once it does you can use your cursor wheel to move 'in' or 'out' through the distance scale. Or, you can use the slider bar provided below the picture. You can click on objects to get more info about them. Here's the link. I hope it works for you.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html

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Pathfinder Tags: distance scale Plank Length Powers of 10 Powers of Ten universe
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Steve of the North
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#1

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 8:33 AM

"Mind blowing" is right. I could see myself spending hours, at home of course, investigating.

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Mikerho
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#2

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 8:41 AM

Fascinating, simply fascinating!

Thanks

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Crabtree
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#3

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 9:05 AM

Love that!

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kvsridhar
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#4

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 10:20 AM

Awesome!

i like these too...

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

http://microcosm.web.cern.ch/microcosm/P10/english/P-15.html

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SolarEagle
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#5

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 10:32 AM

Would it have hurt to put in a few amusing items? How about the scale of the relationship between protons and electrons in an atom? Why no sub-atomic particles? Hello? galaxies? This reminds me of one of those history timelines, which by the way, give a more comprehensive representation of scale...

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Mikerho
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#7
In reply to #5

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 1:53 PM

Uh there were quarks there. If those aren't subatomic, I don't know what is! They also had galaxies.

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SolarEagle
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#8
In reply to #7

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 2:29 PM

Oh, the thing wasn't working....now I got it.....Wow that's cool....

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WJMFIRE
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#6

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 1:11 PM

Amazing. An eye opener for sure.

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lyn
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#9

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 2:37 PM

Fascinating, even without protons and electrons.
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Doorman
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#10

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 3:01 PM

A fascinating site!

The only reason I gave this thread five stars is there is nothing higher to give.

Thanks for sharing Usbport. I will be checking this daily for new images.

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not so smart
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#11

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 3:38 PM

WOW! That gave me brain freeze! I'm gonna play there again!!!

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tcmtech
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#12

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 6:15 PM

Neat but I still think my imagination is bigger!

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lyn
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#13
In reply to #12

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/13/2012 6:44 PM

Well, even if your imagination ain't that big, your ego sure is!!
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dkwarner
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#14

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/14/2012 12:19 AM

It sure worked for me! I showed the original (I think) Powers of 10 movie to my classes over a hundred times, and never got tired of it. This is way better! Thanks!

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#15

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/14/2012 1:12 AM

I absolutely love this!!! Thanks for the share! I especially love the humorous touch they add to the descriptors.

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#16
In reply to #15

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/14/2012 1:23 AM

I especially love the humorous touch (a feeble attempt at best) they add to the descriptors.

I personally think it's kind of dorky, but that's just geeky me. However, they made the attempt which is to be commended!

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#17
In reply to #16

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/14/2012 1:50 AM

Oh come on ... Who would have thought there would have been anything funny about the Large Hadron Collider...

"...It smashes protons into each other! That's really mean..."

Really?! I don't know about you... maybe it's late... but it made me laugh; simple humor is sometimes the best.

But, back to a serious note; comparing this to the the original Powers of Ten (circa 1977,) you can see the factor by which our knowledge and understanding has grown over the years. Apply the same growth rate over the next 35 years...

1977 we had partial knowledge out to 10^24 and down to 10^-14... now we're at 10^27 and 10^-35.

In 2047, when my grand kids come to visit me in the Nursing Home, I can't wait to see them play Part 3 on their finger-tip-implanted Holographic Video Player of what's at 10^30 and 10^-56.

We might finally find Waldo.

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#18
In reply to #17

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/14/2012 9:02 AM

I know! Smashing large hadrons is anything but comical!

10^-56? 21 degrees of magnitude smaller than a plank length????? Now that's small!

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#20
In reply to #18

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/14/2012 10:42 PM

Correction: Planck length.

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Usbport
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#19

Re: Powers of Ten; New Version

03/14/2012 8:02 PM

I'm glad everyone seemed to enjoy it as much as I did.

I don't know anything about Michael and Cary Huang, but they did a great job putting that together.

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Crabtree (1); dkwarner (1); Doorman (1); JavaHead (2); kvsridhar (1); lyn (2); Mikerho (5); not so smart (1); SolarEagle (2); Steve of the North (1); tcmtech (1); Usbport (1); WJMFIRE (1)

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