APOD: Powers of Ten (2015 Mar 24)

[APOD Robot]

Powers of Ten

Explanation: How different does the universe look on small, medium, and large scales? The most famous short science film of its generation gives breathtaking comparisons. That film, Powers of Ten, originally created in the 1960s, has now been officially posted to YouTube and embedded above. Please click the above arrow to see the nine minute movie for yourself. From a picnic blanket near Chicago out past the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies, every ten seconds the film zooms out to show a square a factor of ten times larger on each side. The video then reverses, zooming back in a factor of ten every two seconds and ends up inside a single proton. The Powers of Ten sequence is actually based on the book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke in 1957, as is a similar but mostly animated film Cosmic Zoom that was also created in the late 1960s. The changing perspectives are so enthralling and educational that sections have been recreated using more modern computerized techniques, including the first few minutes of the movie Contact, and in a short digital video called The Known Universe created in 2010 for the American Museum of Natural History. Ray and husband Charles Eames, the film's creators, were known as quite visionary spirits and even invented their own popular chair.

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[Nitpicker]

This was their second version of the film, released in 1977. Believe it or not, I remember seeing it as a kid, broadcast on TV in Australia, in the late 70s or early 80s.

[Ann]

This was their second version of the film, released in 1977. Believe it or not, I remember seeing it as a kid, broadcast on TV in Australia, in the late 70s or early 80s.

I remember it, too.

Ann

[smurfpumper]

I have been visiting APotD for close to 15 years and didn't even know there was a message board. I think this may have been the biggest fail of my internet life ...
That aside, this video was awesome when I first watched it...and the multiple others I have viewed, compare well...but this one still stands up (sans some major sights unseen).
Thank you APotD for the many great pics and links, this one was a gem!

PS: Whenever I clean computers of viruses and clean installs, I put a link to APotD in everyones Favorites. Spread the word of the Stars!

[Markus Schwarz]

I find it remarkable that we extended the scale of our knowledge since then. On the large scale the movie stops at 100 Mly, whereas today we have observations of the entire observable universe. On the small scale the movie ends with the speculation of the existence of quarks, the which is now fact.

[supamario]

A brilliant classic.

This is excellent also:
http://htwins.net/scale2/

[Fossilnole]

I thought that voice of Phil Morrison sounded familiar: he did all the physics movies that were part of the high school PSSC Physics program in the early 60's. Cool piece of work.

[Jim Shea]

This is a GREAT movie. But, it really is out of date. Wasn't an updated version made at some point? I would love to see the updated version.

Jim Shea

[bystander]

This is a GREAT movie. But, it really is out of date. Wasn't an updated version made at some point? I would love to see the updated version.

I don't know about Powers of Ten but The Known Universe and The Scale of the Universe - Interactive were both on APOD.

[Chris Peterson]

On the large scale the movie stops at 100 Mly, whereas today we have observations of the entire observable universe.

Well, we're close. But so far we can't see the observable universe beyond the point where it becomes transparent to photons. In principle we could see to the very edge of the observable universe using some other medium, such as gravitational waves. But we're not quite there yet.

[Ron-Astro Pharmacist]

Maybe the sequel should be the “Powers of i” a journey into hyperspace then reverse into the past? Or is it vice versa? Guess that would be an imaginary film; its pre and sequel – all in one. The se-prequel could be “The Power of

Gods Equation.jpg (21.35 KiB) Viewed 3963 times

Seriously - a great APOD. If they do a sequel I hope they put in someone’s idea of what preons would represent at the scale where they ‘might” be. When I reread the Scientific American article on them recently, it reminded me I haven’t heard much about them in the lay magazines lately.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... s-special/

If they do sequels to both - I hope they are with lay person subtitles.

[smurfpumper]

The furthest distance. We would have to have a way to see faster than the speed of light, and even then, we would have to see faster than the warping of the speed of light, to go further. This is the problem that boggles minds...What is beyond our horizons. I can't tell you if the universe is infinite, and if so - that it means it will be here forever....but I can tell you that the guy in the picnic should have picked a quiter place if he wanted to get lucky. What a dunce!

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Maybe the sequel should be the “Powers of i” a journey into hyperspace then reverse into the past? Or is it vice versa? Guess that would be an imaginary film; its pre and sequel – all in one.

[Chris Peterson]

The furthest distance. We would have to have a way to see faster than the speed of light, and even then, we would have to see faster than the warping of the speed of light, to go further. This is the problem that boggles minds...What is beyond our horizons. I can't tell you if the universe is infinite, and if so - that it means it will be here forever....but I can tell you that the guy in the picnic should have picked a quiter place if he wanted to get lucky. What a dunce!

The edge of the observable universe is defined by the distance beyond which space is moving away from us at greater than c. But there's nothing special about what's beyond that. Just more of the same. We have every reason to believe the Universe looks substantially the same no matter where you are (and every point is the center of its own observable universe). If you were at the edge of the observable universe, you'd (qualitatively) see pretty much what we see from here, although much of it would be stuff that it's impossible to see from our position.

[neufer]

I thought that voice of Phil Morrison sounded familiar:
he did all the physics movies that were part of the high school PSSC Physics program in the early 60's. Cool piece of work.

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<<After surveying the destruction left by the use of the atom bomb in Hiroshima, Philip Morrison (November 7, 1915 – April 22, 2005) became a champion of nuclear nonproliferation. He wrote for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and helped found the Federation of American Scientists and the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies. He testified before Congress on the need for civilian control of nuclear energy, and participated in the Civil Rights Congress in New York and the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace in 1949.

Following his political stances, Morrison's attention began drifting towards the stars. In 1954, he published a paper with Bruno Rossi and Stanislaw Olbert in which they explored Enrico Fermi's theory of how cosmic rays travel through the galaxy. Morrison followed this up with a review of theories of the origins of cosmic rays in 1957. A 1958 paper in Nuovo Cimento is considered to mark the birth of gamma ray astronomy.

In collaboration with Giuseppe Cocconi, Morrison published a paper in 1959 proposing the potential of microwaves in the search for interstellar communications, a component of the modern SETI program.This was one of the first proposals for detecting extraterrestrial intelligence. He conceded that "The probability of success is difficult to estimate, but if we never search, the chance of success is zero."

Morrison remained at Cornell until 1964, when he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He remained there for the remainder of his career, becoming Institute Professor in 1976, and Institute Professor Emeritus in 1986. In 1963, working in collaboration with a student of his, James Felten, Morrison had investigated the effect of inverse Compton scattering, an important source of cosmic x-rays and gamma rays. At MIT, Morrison teamed up with Bruno Rossi's x-ray group there, and also with Riccardo Giacconi's group at nearby American Science and Engineering. Morrison became deeply involved in the exploration of the cosmos through its x-ray and gamma ray emissions. In a 1960 paper, he noted the similarities between pulsars and quasars. He returned to this in 1976, applying his model to the radio galaxy Cygnus A.>>