The universe is really big

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deli_conker

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Saw a picture book a long time ago called "Powers of Ten". It had pictures taken at distances each ten times closer than the last of a tree. The first picture is several million light years from the tree.

I found a site that has it online (kinda). The pictures aren't as cool for the sole reason that they're not as big, but the overall feeling is still there.

It's a java application, but should run fine on most machines. My advice is to click the "manual" button and use the arrows to navigate rather than let it run on automatic (default).

Neat stuff.
 
I had a biology teaching in 8th grade who offered the infamous 'extra credit' to anyone who could print the numbers from 1 to 1,000,000.

Of course, some kid tried it, and after 6 or 7 printer ribbons and a large stack of paper, all of which he brought in to the teacher, he got to (iirc) about 11,000.

That really helped me conceive how inconceivable the number one 'million' truly is.
It's a LOT. :grin:
 
cJw said:
I had a biology teaching in 8th grade who offered the infamous 'extra credit' to anyone who could print the numbers from 1 to 1,000,000.

Of course, some kid tried it, and after 6 or 7 printer ribbons and a large stack of paper, all of which he brought in to the teacher, he got to (iirc) about 11,000.

That really helped me conceive how inconceivable the number one 'million' truly is.
It's a LOT. :grin:
They did something like that when I was in fifth grade. Our assignment (the 5th and 6th grade) was to collect bottle caps. They were stored in one of the storage rooms and it took quite a long time to get them all. Craziness...
 
Speaking of reminders...my 9th grade algebra teacher asked us to compute to the last digit the value of pi. Well, some of us went as far as the 10,000th place until everyone just gave up. :D
 
mattrox said:
That is useful. I will show that to my science and Math classes! :lol:
There is a book of it out there called "Powers of Ten". I saw it on amazon.com for $10, but it is the 6"x4", 152 pages version. I'm pretty sure that the one I saw a while back had much larger dimensions...
 
I think the aspect of that I find most fascinating is the similarity of the mega-large view of the universe to the ultra-small view of an electron cloud. Very cool!
 
deli_conker said:
mattrox said:
That is useful. I will show that to my science and Math classes! :lol:
There is a book of it out there called "Powers of Ten". I saw it on amazon.com for $10, but it is the 6"x4", 152 pages version. I'm pretty sure that the one I saw a while back had much larger dimensions...

"The original concept underlying this tutorial was advanced by Dutch engineer and educator Kees Boeke, who first utilized powers to aid in visualization of large numbers in a 1957 publication entitled "Cosmic View, the Universe in 40 Jumps"."

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-1959671-0132827?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

1 used for $210. 8O But maybe that's the book you saw, it's 48 pages.

Unfortunatly for me I've been loading this applet for almost 20 mins and the bar in it is just going back and forth... nothing has come up yet.
 
That hurt my brain....

Ditto... kinda makes you think, were such a small part of the universe, God could have billions of "earth's" out there... what if were just an experiment in the vast universe? Ever watch MIB? lol
 
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