Many students of science remember Philip Morrison and Phyllis Morrison's classic exploration of the concept of scale - called Powers of Ten, Published originally by Scientific American Press (no longer in print).
Page by page, the book showed increasing/decreasing magnitudes of size, and what phenomena lived at each scale. The book was followed up by a popular film by Charles and Ray Eames in 1977.
Since then, the concept has been tackled by a number of creative minds on the web - from a simple textual listing of what can be found at each scale, to the descendants of the Eames project, to a high-tech laboratory.
Now that concept is being explored in a neatly animated kind of way, in a site produced by Nikon - called Universcale. The subtle pacing and the music are hypnotic. Thanks to Matt Howard for the tip!
It is probably a healthy exercise to be reminded where we fit, within the enormity - and the infinitely small - scope of the universe. It resonates the fractal nature of these repeating patterns, and the new insights we now have of the nature of our world, and the worlds in and around us.
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