itsfullofstars:

APOD: Powers of Ten

Credit & Copyright: Charles & Ray Eames (Eames Office)

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 pans out to show a square a factor of ten times larger on each side. The video then reverses, panning 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 last year for the American Museum of Natural History. Ray and husband Charles, the film’s creators, were known as quite visionary spirits and even invented their own popular chair.

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  1. throughthepoppyfields reblogged this from itsfullofstars
  2. zwolfenstein reblogged this from squid-chick
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  4. xwidep reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    From the very large to the very small in powers of 10 magnitude - excellent video via
  5. lessthanaverage reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    make a new video someone!!
  6. flyingfrenziedpig reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    Watched this over...7th grade science (the only good thing about
  7. calculi reblogged this from itsfullofstars
  8. oldarmour reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    itsfullofstars
  9. dysthymic-misanthropist reblogged this from itsfullofstars
  10. kaiyves reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    If you’ve never seen this...before, do yourself...watch it...
  11. maddworld reblogged this from itsfullofstars
  12. findthebeat reblogged this from itsfullofstars
  13. pfowolf reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    amazing journeys ever...time when we knew far less than we know now. It
  14. lovesickrevolution reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    cool
  15. anniesboobs reblogged this from itsfullofstars
  16. versen reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    Something to get the right perspective. :)
  17. darkuncle reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    I remember this;...surprising thing...there’s no CGI...
  18. inappropriateapplause reblogged this from itsfullofstars and added:
    That’s a pretty dang limited description of Ray and Charles Eames, who are heroes of mine. This film is one of the...
  19. lawyowyou reblogged this from itsfullofstars
  20. steevilweevil reblogged this from itsfullofstars
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