10 Million Light Years and Then Less (Fewer?]
Maria Conlon
its Web site. It begins as a view of the Milky Way Galaxy viewed from a
distance of 10 million light years and then zooms in towards Earth in
powers of ten of distance -10 million, to one million, to 100,000 light
years, etc., until it finally reaches a large oak tree leaf. But that is
not all. It zooms into the leaf until it reaches to the level of the
quarks viewed at 100 attometers.
=======
I didn't write any of the above, so don't ask me what an attometer is.
Also, there are various kinds of oak trees in this world, and the one
pictured has leaves that look nothing like the leaves on the oak tree in
my back yard. I never realized before that the leaves from oak to oak
were that different. So I took a trip to Google Images to check it out.
Imagine -- just a few minutes with the site and I'm already doing some
"research." This should be a good site for aue'ers, the generally
curious, and most kids, I would think.
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/ [reassembly needed]
primer/java/ scienceopticsu/
powersof10/index.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/hck
The download is not instantaneous, at least not on DSL.
There's a lot more at this site than what is described above. (If this
URL was posted in aue before, I don't remember it. So maybe it's
new...?)
Enjoy.
Maria Conlon
Dena Jo
> There's a lot more at this site than what is described above. (If
> this URL was posted in aue before, I don't remember it. So maybe
> it's new...?)
That was very cool. I thought it was even more impressive going from
small to big. It's quite amazing how quickly things increase in
increments of 10.
--
Dena Jo
Email goes to denajo2 at the dot com variation of the Yahoo domain.
Have I confused you? Go here:
http://myweb.cableone.net/denajo/emailme.htm
Mark Brader
> ... I thought it was even more impressive going from
> increments of 10.
They're factors, not increments. You're multiplying each time.
(And I say this just from the description, without even having seen
the web site.)
--
Mark Brader | "The good news is that the Internet is dynamic.
Toronto | The bad news is that the Internet is dynamic."
m...@vex.net | -- Peter Neumann
Rolleston
>Florida State University has put up a very interesting Java applet on
>its Web site. It begins as a view of the Milky Way Galaxy viewed from a
>distance of 10 million light years and then zooms in towards Earth in
>powers of ten of distance -10 million, to one million, to 100,000 light
>years, etc., until it finally reaches a large oak tree leaf. But that is
>not all. It zooms into the leaf until it reaches to the level of the
>quarks viewed at 100 attometers.
>=======
[Amazon.com, Powers of Ten, http://tinyurl.com/3gywt]
Starting with a view of a billion light-years, the book
(like the film) moves inward, with each page being
at one-tenth the scale of the previous one.
One attometer appears to be a measure of length 1 x 10^-18m.
The prefix "atto" is, I read, from the Danish "atten" = "eighteen".
R.
John Dean
> On 03 Apr 2004, Maria Conlon posted thus:
>
>> There's a lot more at this site than what is described above. (If
>> this URL was posted in aue before, I don't remember it. So maybe
>> it's new...?)
>
> That was very cool. I thought it was even more impressive going from
> small to big. It's quite amazing how quickly things increase in
> increments of 10.
Don't forget the power of binary. How many times can you fold a piece of
paper in half (without unfolding it at any stage)?
I have a little Flipbook 'Powers of Ten', a product of
http://www.eamesoffice.com/
and 'based on the film by Charles and Roy Eames'. It starts at the -10
million light years (10^23 meters), zooms in to Chicago's Lake Shore Drive
and Marina and a guy asleep at a picnic and progresses to 10^-15 meters and
a single proton.
The Florida applet is a lot cooler because you don't have to flip pages with
your thumb.
The Eames Flipbook is at
http://www.eamesoffice.com/catalog/detail.php?category=103&prod_id=238
And the wallchart at
http://www.eamesoffice.com/catalog/detail.php?category=157&prod_id=209
(They seem to have modified the imagery so they now go down to the quark at
10^-18 and up to 10^+25
And, of course, the movie and, now, interactive CD:
http://www.eamesoffice.com/films/Powers_of_Ten.html
They even got reviewed on the Eye Em Dee Bee:
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0078106/combined
--
John Dean
Oxford
Dena Jo
> Don't forget the power of binary.
Can't resist.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand
binary, and those who don't.
> How many times can you fold a
> piece of paper in half (without unfolding it at any stage)?
An 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper, six.
Dena Jo
> They're factors, not increments.
Yes, of course.
Freddy
"Dena Jo" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:Xns94C0B539...@130.133.1.4...
> On 03 Apr 2004, John Dean posted thus:
>
> > Don't forget the power of binary.
>
> Can't resist.
>
> There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand
> binary, and those who don't.
>
> > How many times can you fold a
> > piece of paper in half (without unfolding it at any stage)?
>
> An 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper, six.
>
Dena Jo
Really?
<trying it with a 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 piece of paper>
I dunno. The sixth time was really, really hard.
Skitt
> "Dena Jo" wrote:
>> John Dean posted thus:
>>> Don't forget the power of binary.
>>
>> Can't resist.
>>
>> There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand
>> binary, and those who don't.
>>
>>> How many times can you fold a
>>> piece of paper in half (without unfolding it at any stage)?
>>
>> An 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper, six.
>>
> This is one time when size doesn't matter.
Oh, but it do! Try it with a piece 1 inch square. For larger pieces, six
(possibly seven) seems to be the limit.
For secrets on how to achieve more folds, see
http://www.osb.net/Pomona/12times.htm
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Raymond S. Wise
news:ODJbc.6650$u%1.70...@news02.tsnz.net...
It appears that it does. Using a sheet from the local
newspaper--approximately 24" by 22"--I was able to fold it in half eight
times.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Matti Lamprhey
>
> That was very cool. I thought it was even more impressive going from
> small to big. It's quite amazing how quickly things increase in
> increments of 10.
It's a knack.
Matti
John O'Flaherty
<mariaco...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Florida State University has put up a very interesting Java applet on
>its Web site. It begins as a view of the Milky Way Galaxy viewed from a
>distance of 10 million light years and then zooms in towards Earth in
>powers of ten of distance -10 million, to one million, to 100,000 light
>years, etc., until it finally reaches a large oak tree leaf. But that is
>not all. It zooms into the leaf until it reaches to the level of the
>quarks viewed at 100 attometers.
>=======
>
>I didn't write any of the above, so don't ask me what an attometer is.
It's just a device for measuring approval.
--
john
John Dean
> On 03 Apr 2004, Freddy posted thus:
>
>> "Dena Jo" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
>> news:Xns94C0B539...@130.133.1.4...
>>> On 03 Apr 2004, John Dean posted thus:
>>>
>>>> Don't forget the power of binary.
>>>
>>> Can't resist.
>>>
>>> There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand
>>> binary, and those who don't.
>>>
>>>> How many times can you fold a
>>>> piece of paper in half (without unfolding it at any stage)?
>>>
>>> An 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper, six.
>>>
>> This is one time when size doesn't matter.
>
> Really?
>
> <trying it with a 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 piece of paper>
>
> I dunno. The sixth time was really, really hard.
Imagine the biggest piece of paper you can. Now imagine folding it in half.
How many times?
Or, imagine cutting it in half. Lay the halves on top of each other. Cut in
half. Lay the quarters on top of each other. Rinse and repeat. How many
times?
Place a grain of wheat on the first square of a chessboard ...
--
John Dean
Oxford
Edwin Petree
@ID-113669.news.uni-berlin.de:
> I didn't write any of the above, so don't ask me what an attometer is.
I'd be interested in the pronounciation of attometer. Would there be any
similarities to the kilometer discussions?
Raymond S. Wise
news:Xns94C19BD4D3CB0e...@news-60.giganews.com...
As MWCD11 puts it, in the usage note under the entry for "kilometer," "Those
who object to second syllable stress say that the first syllable should be
stressed in accord with the stress patterns of _centimeter, millimeter,_
etc. However, the pronunciation of kilometer does not parallel that of other
metric compounds." The pronunciation of "attometer" would thus be
/'&toU,mit@r/ {"AT-oh-mee-tur") or /'&t@,mit@r/ ("AT-uh-mee-tur"). MWCD11
does not give a pronunciation of "attometer," but it does give a
pronunciation for "atto-" /'&,toU/ ("AT-oh") and one for "nanometer"
/'n&n@,mit@r/ ("NAN-uh-mee-tur"), from which I derive the previously given
pronunciations for "attometer." I'd go with /'&t@,mit@r/ ("AT-uh-mee-tur"),
except with a tap for the /t/ sounds, which would make it, in ASCII IPA,
/'&*@,mi*@r/ ("AD-uh-mee-dur" is the closest that pronunciation spelling can
come to representing that tap),
R H Draney
>
>Dena Jo wrote:
>
>I have a little Flipbook 'Powers of Ten', a product of
>http://www.eamesoffice.com/
>and 'based on the film by Charles and Roy Eames'. It starts at the -10
>million light years (10^23 meters), zooms in to Chicago's Lake Shore Drive
>and Marina and a guy asleep at a picnic and progresses to 10^-15 meters and
>a single proton.
>The Florida applet is a lot cooler because you don't have to flip pages with
>your thumb.
>
>The Eames Flipbook is at
>http://www.eamesoffice.com/catalog/detail.php?category=103&prod_id=238
>
>And the wallchart at
>http://www.eamesoffice.com/catalog/detail.php?category=157&prod_id=209
>
>(They seem to have modified the imagery so they now go down to the quark at
>10^-18 and up to 10^+25
>
>And, of course, the movie and, now, interactive CD:
>http://www.eamesoffice.com/films/Powers_of_Ten.html
>
>They even got reviewed on the Eye Em Dee Bee:
>http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0078106/combined
I have the Eames movie on DVD...it comes with a second film about the closing
down of their laboratory/studio, filled with all sorts of elaborate mechanical
devices for making music....
A recent episode of the Simpsons used the "Powers of Ten" concept in the opening
sofa gag...the family gathered on the sofa and the camera pulled back to show
Springfield, then the globe, and on out into space (at one point Kang and Kodos
were shown fixing a flat on their flying saucer)...at an extreme remove,
galaxies clustered together to become subatomic particles, which resolved into
strands of DNA, eventually revealing the Simpson family on their sofa...Homer
concluded the tour by observing "Wow"....r
John Lawler
>"Freddy" <preg...@paradise.net.nz> writes
>> "Dena Jo" <m...@privacy.net> writes
>> > John Dean posteth thus:
>> > > Don't forget the power of binary.
>> > Can't resist.
>> > There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand
>> > binary, and those who don't.
>> > > How many times can you fold a
>> > > piece of paper in half (without unfolding it at any stage)?
>> > An 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper, six.
>> This is one time when size doesn't matter.
>
>It appears that it does. Using a sheet from the local newspaper--
>approximately 24" by 22"--I was able to fold it in half eight times.
It's not the two-dimensional size, but the third-dimensional thickness that
makes a difference. Try a piece of the thinnest onionskin paper you can
find, and you'll be able to do even more. Newsprint is thinner than
ordinary writing paper. Still, there's a limit to folding imposed by the
tensile strength, especially at corners.
As for the Powers of Ten, the original Eames movie is available at many
public libraries on videocassette, can be bought, and should be part of
every child's collection of videos. [Gift suggestion for children's b'days
and holidays.] It's *wonderful*. If you haven't seen it, you have a treat
in store.
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler U Michigan Linguistics Dept
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting
than looking." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Robert Bannister
> "Edwin Petree" <edwin...@example.invalid> wrote in message
> news:Xns94C19BD4D3CB0e...@news-60.giganews.com...
>
>>"Maria Conlon" <mariaco...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:c4n2l0$2jk0lo$1
>>@ID-113669.news.uni-berlin.de:
>>
>>
>>>I didn't write any of the above, so don't ask me what an attometer is.
>>
>>I'd be interested in the pronounciation of attometer. Would there be any
>>similarities to the kilometer discussions?
>
>
>
> As MWCD11 puts it, in the usage note under the entry for "kilometer," "Those
> who object to second syllable stress say that the first syllable should be
> stressed in accord with the stress patterns of _centimeter, millimeter,_
> etc. However, the pronunciation of kilometer does not parallel that of other
> metric compounds."
It's difficult to see exactly what they mean by that. Sure, they say
that the 2nd syllable stress has a venerable history, but outside
America, where we differentiate between 'metres' (units of measurement)
and 'meters' (measuring devices), it is more common for meters to have
the 2nd syllable stress: eg therMOmeter, baROmeter - there are
exceptions to this, but I can't think of one off-hand.
I don't criticise people who say 'kiLOmetre', but it is illogical.
--
Rob Bannister
Raymond S. Wise
news:c4qbn3$ef3$1...@enyo.uwa.edu.au...
That it might be unsystematic is true but is of no importance. In the logic
which counts--"Can the speaker get across his intended meaning?"--the logic
of the pronunciation in question is impeccable: A "ki-LO-meter" speaker is
able to get his meaning across no less well than does a "KIL-o-meter"
speaker.
(I have to admit that the pronunciation "KIL-o-meter" still sounds a bit
goofy to me, even though I know that American scientists tend to prefer it.)
Where language is concerned, the logic which matters is the logic of
communication.
Is it logical for military people to say "niner" on the radio instead of
"nine"? Not if they intend to stick with the system which uses "nine"
instead, obviously--that is, if they intend to be broadly systematic. But on
the question of getting one's intended meaning across, using "niner" under
the circumstances in question is even *more* successful in getting one's
meaning across than is using "nine," and thus a more rational choice.
In Esperanto, every consonant name "logically" ends in "o" ("fo" and "go"
for "f" and "g," for example) which is the mark of the noun. But for
purposes of identifying chemical formulas, an alternate system has been
created in which other vowels are used besides "o" in order to disambiguate
the consonants one from another.
Michael West
> I don't criticise people who say 'kiLOmetre', but it is illogical.
What's "logical" about any pronunciation convention? It's all
just a matter of custom, isn't it?
--
Michael West
dcw
Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> wrote:
>I don't criticise people who say 'kiLOmetre', but it is illogical.
I recently heard "nanOMetre" for the first time.
David
Edwin Petree
$45be...@newscene.com:
But do the kiLOMeter people also say kiLOGram?
Perhaps incosistant is an easier word than illogical?
Sara Lorimer
> "Michael West" <mbw...@remove.bigpond.com> wrote in news:4070cbe8$0$10744
> $45be...@newscene.com:
>
> > Robert Bannister wrote:
> >
> >> I don't criticise people who say 'kiLOmetre', but it is illogical.
> >
> > What's "logical" about any pronunciation convention? It's all
> > just a matter of custom, isn't it?
>
> But do the kiLOMeter people also say kiLOGram?
This one doesn't.
--
SML
Dalg! Glidj! Blimlimlim!
http://pirate-women.com
R H Draney
It's the one just larger than that that's the problem: "MICrometer" is a unit of
distance; "miCROMeter" is a device used to measure the thickness of
materials....
What's illogical is that silly Frenchy spelling of the base unit...I see no
reason to retain foreign orthography in a naturalized English term...if you
disagree, I suggest you should be using the Greek alphabet for the prefixes....r
J. J. Lodder
> dcw filted:
> >
> >In article <c4qbn3$ef3$1...@enyo.uwa.edu.au>,
> >Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> wrote:
> >
> >>I don't criticise people who say 'kiLOmetre', but it is illogical.
> >
> >I recently heard "nanOMetre" for the first time.
>
> It's the one just larger than that that's the problem: "MICrometer" is a
> unit of distance; "miCROMeter" is a device used to measure the thickness
> of materials....
>
> What's illogical is that silly Frenchy spelling of the base unit...I see no
> reason to retain foreign orthography in a naturalized English term...
Against the spirit and the rules of the metric system.
Universality was (and still is) the aim.
> if you disagree, I suggest you should be using the Greek alphabet for the
> prefixes....r
In fact, back in the 1790-ies the French too objected very much against
those crazy greek prefixes. Eventually they got used to them.
Perhaps, even the Americans, in another 200 years ...
Jan
Edwin Petree
news:c4s7l...@drn.newsguy.com:
Who'd pay to change all the theatre signs?
The Grammer Genious
> As MWCD11 puts it, in the usage note under the entry for "kilometer," "Those
> who object to second syllable stress say that the first syllable should be
> stressed in accord with the stress patterns of _centimeter, millimeter,_
> etc. However, the pronunciation of kilometer does not parallel that of other
> metric compounds." <...>
And they're right, of course. Everybody I know pronounces
"kilogram" as "kuh-LOG-rum".
\\P. Schultz
Robert Bannister
I would have found it easier to agree with you if you hadn't used the
word 'convention'. I agree about 'custom', but not everyone has the same
custom. This is where the CONtroversy/conTROVersy starts.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
English spelling is mostly illogical, but it is quite traditional to
retain a foreign spelling to differentiate meaning as we do with 'metre'
(unit of measurement) and 'meter' (measuring device).
--
Rob Bannister
Raymond S. Wise
If, however, we had decided to spell "liter" as "litre" and "kilometer" as
"kilometre," and so forth, that would have been a very big exception to the
"logical spelling" reforms of Noah Webster and later American reformers.
These reforms generally affected technical and scientific terms whose
ultimate origin is Greek or Latin. That's why we have "ether" instead of
"aether," "niter" instead of "nitre," and "edema" instead of "oedema." It
seems to me that keeping this practice consistent is more important than
distinguishing a measuring device from a unit of measurement (and I have
personally never, as far as I can remember, encountered a situation in which
the "-meter" spelling caused me any confusion whatsoever).
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I'd go with /'&t@,mit@r/ ("AT-uh-mee-tur"), except with a tap for
> the /t/ sounds, which would make it, in ASCII IPA, /'&*@,mi*@r/
> ("AD-uh-mee-dur" is the closest that pronunciation spelling can come
> to representing that tap),
The flap [*] is not phonemic. It's a phonetic reflex of both /t/ and
/d/, but it's perceived as one or the other, as evidenced by the
minimal pair "writer" and "rider", both of which have [*] for (most
of) those who have it at all. (The distinction is made based on the
length of the preceding vowel, longer before /d/.)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If the human brain were so simple
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |That we could understand it,
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |We would be so simple
|That we couldn't.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Geoff Butler
>Dena Jo wrote:
>> On 03 Apr 2004, Maria Conlon posted thus:
>>
>>> There's a lot more at this site than what is described above. (If
>>> this URL was posted in aue before, I don't remember it. So maybe
>>> it's new...?)
>>
>> That was very cool. I thought it was even more impressive going from
>> small to big. It's quite amazing how quickly things increase in
>> increments of 10.
>
>paper in half (without unfolding it at any stage)?
Only once. Second time, you're folding it in quarters.
--
-ler