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Feb

5

Fun with Scale

Posted by Danny on Friday, February 5, 2010 at 12:13 am

Yay, more astronomy, sort of.  I think It’s safe to assume that most people who’d read this blorg have heard of (and probably by extension, seen) the Powers of Ten video produced by IBM in the bygone era of the ancient 1970s, but if not, here’s your chance.

The powers of ten from Curtis James on Vimeo.

I love the tour through the sciences, moving from cosmology at the outer extent of the journey, through astronomy, then sociology (what the hell, right?—urban sprawl and stuff), biology, chemistry, and then physics.  Also, the narrator has the sort of voice that’s only broadcast without irony in productions that are at least two decades old, or The Sciences.  Bob MacDonald of Quirks and Quarks or Jay Ingram of Daily Planet are local exemplars.

Recently(ish) on Astronomy Picture of the Day, they featured a video that struck me as a contemporary successor to Powers of Ten, and which I present below.  If you have the bandwidth, I strongly suggest viewing this at 720.  (Also, if you’d like to read the APOD commentary, it’s here.)

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