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'Powers of 10' (1977 science documentary) watch!

youtube.com — This famous short film takes the viewer exponentially outward from a picnic in a park -- first one meter, then 10 meters, then 100 meters, etc. -- to show humanity's place in the universe, and then reverses the process, going inward by powers of ten to look inside the human body and finally inside individual atoms.

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  • tomboy501, on 05/24/2008, -1/+27More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_Ten
    ...and another similar exercise with time, instead of space: http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2008/05/powers-o ...
    • akifbayram, on 05/25/2008, -0/+2Pluto was a planet back then...

      Those were the days...
  • diggetoipi, on 05/24/2008, -26/+11I already submitted this!

    http://digg.com/educational/Powers_of_Ten_10
    • tomboy501, on 05/24/2008, -1/+14Not trying to steal the thunder of your 3 day-old post, diggetoipi. When I did a search before I submitted, this is what came up:
      http://digg.com/search?s=powers+of+10&submit=Searc ...
      Obviously digg search is broken. Take 1 minute to email feedback or bug report about it.
      I did.
      • diggetoipi, on 05/24/2008, -1/+8No problem, I was concerned that you might not have cared if it's a duplicate, but clearly you aren't being irresponsible.
        • tomboy501, on 05/24/2008, -2/+13Thanks, diggetoipi. My submitting habits on digg since day-one have always included searching first. I've been real frustrated lately with the site's search feature....it doesn't even seem to recognize keywords sometimes. I hope they fix it soon.
          ...and thanks for being so civil. That's rare and precious around here. Have a great weekend!
        • Giever, on 05/24/2008, -2/+8What a class act, gentlemen.
        • IAmCuteKitty, on 05/24/2008, -2/+8You people take this WAY to seriously, who cares just enjoy the video.
        • Emnsta, on 05/24/2008, -0/+8Internet: Serious Business
        • IAmCuteKitty, on 05/25/2008, -1/+0lol
    • liljay2k, on 05/25/2008, -0/+1can Digg.com just use google search please:
      http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Adigg.com+pow ...

  • posture, on 05/24/2008, -3/+27Old but awesome, dugg.
  • splatterboy, on 05/24/2008, -0/+6All the Eames films are good, Im sitting in one of their chairs right now. Explore more...
    • blacktriangle, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1So am I. Its an Eames shell chair (circa 1965).
  • Mathematical, on 05/24/2008, -3/+59Another reference in XKCD I now finally understand.
    http://xkcd.com/271/
  • johanvm, on 05/24/2008, -1/+3Great film, I'm also sitting on one of their chairs right now (aluminum chair).
    • converge, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1I'm sitting in a fiberglass shell chair.
  • zosoIV, on 05/24/2008, -5/+32Older than the internet.
    har har.
    • KingWilson, on 05/24/2008, -0/+10This is like the only time this comment actually applies i think
    • credence, on 05/25/2008, -0/+2But not older than the Arpanet.
  • Irfit, on 05/24/2008, -0/+13This is the kind of stuff I miss on digg.
    Dugg.
  • superal1394, on 05/24/2008, -3/+4Oh god we watched this in Physics this year...
  • gerrylazlo, on 05/24/2008, -2/+5I love this film, but the music blows.
  • magicaltrevor, on 05/24/2008, -6/+26Older than the Internet. Literally.
  • AuntJemyma, on 05/24/2008, -1/+5Even thought it's old apparently, I'd never seen it.


    Awesome.
  • fhernand, on 05/24/2008, -0/+4meigs field takeoff.. brings back good ms flightsim memories...
    oh have i crashed that site a good many times
  • DestroyFascism, on 05/24/2008, -1/+3I'm fairly certain if going in further or out further will take you to the same beginning...
  • arjung, on 05/24/2008, -1/+1we watched this every year in a summer camp at which i used to work. awesome video.
  • griff36, on 05/24/2008, -1/+10watched this in Chemistry this year.
    would like to see a newer version, with crazy graphics and such
    • blipblipbeep, on 05/24/2008, -0/+0Soz (commented first then started reading) as i basically said what u said.
  • s0m31john, on 05/24/2008, -1/+6Not kidding, I watched this video in physics class last week.
  • blipblipbeep, on 05/24/2008, -0/+3Nice. An update wouldn't be bad tho.
  • itsgotyou, on 05/24/2008, -2/+17The metric system is so much more practical, more efficient. I wish the 3 remaining countries using imperial measures would finally switch and lay peach and happiness all across the land.

    Prefix Abbreviation Power of 10 Equivalent
    deka- or deca- da 10^1 ten
    hecto- h 10^2 hundred
    kilo- k 10^3 thousand
    mega- M 10^6 million
    giga- G 10^9 billion
    tera- T 10^12 trillion
    peta- P 10^15 quadrillion
    exa- E 10^18 quintillion
    zetta- Z 10^21 sextillion
    yotta- Y 10^24 septillion

    Prefix Abbreviation Power of 10 Equivalent
    deci- d 10^−1 tenth
    centi- c 10^−2 hundredth
    milli- m 10^−3 thousandth
    micro- μ 10^−6 millionth
    nano- n 10^−9 billionth
    pico- p 10^−12 trillionth
    femto- f 10^−15 quadrillionth
    atto- a 10^−18 quintillionth
    zepto- z 10^−21 sextillionth
    yocto- y 10^−24 septillionth
    • IAmCuteKitty, on 05/24/2008, -0/+2which countries tell me please
    • jisrael, on 05/24/2008, -6/+3we all know how the metric system works, but thanks for the refresher.
      I work in autoCAD all day long and I would much rather use the imperial system. I just prefer 1/64 to .015625. Fractions are easier to read and easier to add than a long string of numbers and it immediately tells you how precise you need to get.
      I know that the metric system would work just fine as well, but I disagree that it is more practical or efficient.
      • itsgotyou, on 05/24/2008, -2/+5I will give an example of the practicality and the efficiency of the metric system by showing you how cumbersome the imperial system is. Let's say I need to lay carpeting on a 10' x 10' square bedroom. I go to a carpet store that sells the carpets for $10/ sq.yd. How much carpet do I need to buy and how much should I pay?
        Conversely look at how the SI will tackle the same problem. 3m x 3m square room. Cost of carpet is $10/ sq.m. You will pay $90 for 9m² of material.

        Simple. Practical. Efficient. I hope I have converted you from imperial to metric.
        • Firehed, on 05/24/2008, -2/+3Well it's not the ass-backward imperial system's fault that the store priced in square yards when you measured in square feet.
        • itsgotyou, on 05/24/2008, -0/+4I take it that you haven't been buying carpets, wall paper and fabric recently. My point was that in the metric system, you can switch to sq m. to sq. km to sq. Dm without batting an eyelash. It's all a multiple of 10, not 12.
        • jisrael, on 05/25/2008, -2/+1actually, if you're talking about sq. calculations, it'd be a multiple of 100 (100 sq. mm = 1 sq. cm) you're technically right, but i still think you got it wrong. you also showed why it's the metric system is annoying. you're counting too many zeros and dealing with moving decimals. the imperial system is much easier to read on paper.

          also, what if your room isn't exactly 3 meters but rather 3.3333 meters like the 3.333 yards of the other room. you're now running into the same mathematical difficulty in calculating the room. OR, you could say the other room is 100 sq. ft and then divide by 9, giving you the exact square yardage.
        • glinsvad, on 05/25/2008, -0/+5@jisrael
          "too many zeros" = worst argument ever

          Scientific SI-units uses power-of-ten premultipliers e.g.:
          9 m^2 = 9*10^4 cm^2
          , which is pretty easy as 1 m = 10^2 cm so 1 m^2 = 10^4 cm^2
      • sc0rpi0n, on 05/25/2008, -0/+3First off, you won't get .015625 with metric. Either it is either 15mm or 16mm. There is no need to express the millimeters as 1/64 meter. That would be stupid. Metrics is designed to eliminated the stupid use of fraction by replacing it with the use of smaller scale (milli, micro, nano, pico....)
        • jisrael, on 05/25/2008, -6/+1fractions aren't stupid. they're easier. it prevents you from adding cm to mm by accident without converting. if you see a fraction, you know it's part of an inch, not part of a foot or a yard. if you're just looking at a string of numbers, you may or may not have to move the decimal point before you can add, which seems to me to have a higher probability of error.
        • sc0rpi0n, on 05/25/2008, -0/+61 cm = 10 mm. And fraction is really stupid. It is used mainly because you can't convert inch to a smaller unit.

          1m = 10 dm = 100cm = 1,000mm = 1,000,000 um. I don't see how anyone can make mistake. It's not like converting foot to inch, foot to yard, foot to mile, etc.
  • BloodWenis, on 05/24/2008, -0/+2I wonder if kids still watch Julius Sumner Miller videos too.
  • bj1989, on 05/24/2008, -0/+3We saw this in school, impressive video. They should update it every five years, adding new discoveries.
    • Scynet, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1Well, practically, anyone can now do the first part of the trip with the multitude of space observation programs out there, such as World Wide Telescope, Celestia, or Google's equivalent.
  • Jomskylark, on 05/24/2008, -1/+1Awesome. Already seen this, but I didn't realize it was made in 1977 lol.
  • ReyX, on 05/24/2008, -0/+6I love how it's categorized "Comedy"...
  • bouche, on 05/24/2008, -2/+1I'm sure I saw this in grade 2.
  • Appox, on 05/24/2008, -0/+3Whoa that blew my mind a little.
  • tomazkovacic, on 05/24/2008, -0/+5Want to know about 1 Ångström: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85ngstr%C3%B6m
  • TheDuckHat, on 05/24/2008, -0/+20Pluto? a planet? HA!
  • shodanx, on 05/24/2008, -3/+0lives of millions of wildlife species and save space in landfills
    wildlife aren't "dying by the million" from chocking on bits of plastics
    landfills aren't running out of space
    aren't the degraded products of plastic more toxic
    is keeping the detritus shaken and at 86C degrees efficient ? or does the wasted energy causing more pollution than just leaving the plastic as is
    would it be better to just burn the plastics ? if they are mostly polymerized hydrocarbon they should contain a lot of salvageable energy and mostly only produce CO2 no ?
  • shodanx, on 05/24/2008, -0/+0Wow !
  • str3ama, on 05/24/2008, -1/+3If ever a time it called for, this would be the time to say EPIC!
  • PeninsulaBoy217, on 05/24/2008, -1/+5My car gets 30 rods to the hog's head and that's the way I like it!
  • duli42, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1I actually remember watching this in grade 9 academic science.
  • mojoface, on 05/24/2008, -1/+1Gawd You Tube has horrible video quality
  • Kremzeek, on 05/24/2008, -0/+6I remember when I was a kid, we would drive to Toronto, Ontario, CA to visit relatives every summer. One of the highlights for me was to visit the Ontario Science Center. They had this film on a continuous loop in a little room. I remember my sister and me sitting there watching this over and over again, my father the electrical engineer trying to help us understand the implications of the film. What a great memory, made even better when my daughter (6) saw this in school and came home to tell me how great it was.
    • DarkSim, on 05/24/2008, -0/+2I used to do the same thing, albeit in Bradford, England, at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. Great to see it again all these years later!
  • danomagnum, on 05/24/2008, -0/+3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riW0wQd5z2M&feature ...
  • Neemzor, on 05/24/2008, -0/+11Even though this is an old video, it can help the average non-space fanatic to acknowledge how big space and time really is. People don't normally comprehend the actual size of the grand scheme of things, and after watching a video like this paired with this video by Carl Sagan,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

    can really show us just how minuscule we are compared to the vastness of the universe.
  • Jayzgame, on 05/24/2008, -0/+3Oh, I remember this from my astronomy class.
    I love this thing.
  • illt, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1cool trippy space music version:
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=dvTe1-a6Pdo
  • tjmasco, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1I literally just watched this yesterday in Chemistry class for the first time.
  • mwmccullough, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1Reality can be fun and humbling at the same time.
  • franksalvo, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1I love the relative vastness of space within an atom.
  • Funpolice2050, on 05/24/2008, -2/+1Older than John McCain.
  • Elise1984, on 05/24/2008, -1/+2Cool! They did something very similar on Men in Black II, except there were aliens involved... I think I like MIB's Better :-)
  • nawitus, on 05/24/2008, -0/+4Science is the *****.
  • GoldenChaos, on 05/24/2008, -0/+2http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/i ...

    Universcale is like this, but has MUCH more information and is of a far larger scale. It's incredible, really.
  • Shibbashabba, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1It has a way of making you realize how small you really are in the scheme of things...
  • sfriedlander, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1They should redo this, technology has come along ways in 30 years
  • Kopiok, on 05/24/2008, -0/+1Saw this in my AP Physics class last year. :P
  • 5xSTUN, on 05/24/2008, -1/+3Someone should make a redneck version, like on Family Guy.
  • marlintehrani, on 05/24/2008, -6/+2that's about as big as my *****.
    • marlintehrani, on 05/25/2008, -4/+2you don't have to digg me down just because i said "*****" it was a joke.

      something more cerebral would have been: "that video gave me vertigo, and made me feel unbalanced." but where is the zap in that? i guess.
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