Powers of Ten

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POWERS OF TEN:

The picnic near the lake shore in Chicago

was the start of a lazy afternoon

Early One October

We begin with a scene 1 meter wide,

Which we view from 1 meter away.

Now every 10 seconds we will look from

10x mais farther away

And our field of view will be

10x wider

This square is 10 meters wide

And in 10 seconds the next square will be

10x as wide

Our image is the center of the picnickers

Even after they've been lost the sight

100 meters wide, the distance a

man can run in 10 seconds

Cars crowd the highway,

power boats lie at their docs

The colorful bleechures of Soldier's Field

.

This square is 1 kilometer wide,

1000 meters

the distance a racing car can travel

in 10 seconds

We see the great city

on the lake shore

10 to the forth meter,

ten kilometers

the distance a super sonic airplane

can travel in 10 seconds

We see the first around end of Lake Michigan

then the whole Great Lake.

10 to the fifth meters, the distance

an orbiting satelite covers in 10 seconds

Longs parades of clouds,

the day weather of the Mid-West

10 to the sixth, one with 6 zeros.

One million meters

Soon the Earth will show us

its solid sphere

We are able to see the whole Earth now,

just over a minute along the jorney

The Earth diminish the distance, but these

background star are so much farther away.

They do not yer appear to move

A line extends at the

true speed of light.

In 1 second we cross the tilted

orbit of the Moon.

Now we mark a small part of the path

which the Earth moves about the Sun

onde a Terra move ao redor do sol

Now the orbit pass on the

neighbor planets

Venus, Mars and Mercury

Entering in our field of view is the glowing center

of our Solar System, the Sun.

Followed by the massive other planets,

swinging wide in their big orbits.

That orbit belongs to Pluto

A fringe of miriage comets too fraint to see

completes the solar system.

10 to the 14th

While our Solar System shrinks into one

bright point on the distance

Our sun is plaining now only one

between the stars

Looking back from here we note

four southern constellations

still much as they appear

from the farside of the Earth.

This square is 10 to the 16th meters,

one light year

not yet out to the next star.

Our last 10 seconds step

took us

10 light years further. The next will be a 100.

Our perspective changes so much

on each step now

that even the background stars

will appear to converge.

At last we passed the bright star

Arcrtris and some star in the deeper.

Normal, but quite unfamiliar stars and.

clouds of gas surround us.

as we tranverse the Milky Way Galaxy.

Giant steps carry us into the

outskirts of the galaxy.

While we pull away we begin to see

the great flat spiral

facing us.

The time and path we chose to

leave Chicago

has brought us out of the galaxy along

a course

nearly perpendicular

to its disc.

The two little satellite galaxies of our own

are the clouds of the Jung.

Ten to the 22nd power.

One million light years.

Groups of galaxies bring a new level

of structure to the scene.

Glooming points are no longer

single stars,

But whole galaxies of stars

seen as one.

We pass the big Virgo cluster of galaxies

among many others

100 millions light years out

as we approach the limits of our vision

we pause to start back home

This lonely scene, the galaxy like dust

is what most space looks like.

This emptiness is normal.

The richness of our own neighborhood

is the exception.

The trip back to the picnic

on the lake front

will be a sped up version,

reducing the earth's surface by

one power of ten

every 2 seconds.

In each two seconds

we will appear to cover 90 % of the

remaining distance

back to Earth.

Notice the alternation between the great activity and

relative inactivity

A rhythm that will continue all the way until

our next goal:

A proton and a nucleus of a carbon atom

beneath the skin

of the hand of a sleepy man

at the picnic.

10 to the ninth meters

10 to the eight

Seven

Six

Five

Four

Three

Two

One

We are back at our starting point

We slow up at one meter,

10 to the zero power.

Now we reduce the distance to our

final destination by 9%

every 10 seconds.

Each step much smaller than

the one before.

At 10 to -2, 1/100 to the meter,

1 cm,

We approach the surface of the hand.

In a few seconds, we will enter in the skin.

Crossing layer after layer, from

the outermost dead cells

into a tiny blood vessel within.

Skin layers vanish and turn

An outer layer of cells,

felty collagen.

The capillary containing red blood cells

in a roughly lymphocyte.

We enter the white cell.

Among its vital organelles, the porous

wall of the cell nucleus appears.

The nucleus within holds the

heredity of the man

in the coiled coils of DNA

As we close in, we come to the

double helix itself.

A molecule, like a long twisted

ladder whose rungs of

paired bases spell out twice in

an alphabet of four letters

the words of a powerful genetic message.

At the atomic scale, the interplay

of four manned motion

becames more visible.

we focus on one commonplace group

of 3 hydrogen atoms

bonded by electrical forces

to a carbon atom.

4 electrons make up the outer

shell of the carbon itself.

They appear in quantum motion

as a swarm of shimmering points.

At 10 to the minus 10 meters,

1 angstron,

we find ourselves right among

those outer electrons.

Now we come upon the two inner electrons

held in a tighter swarm.

as we draw to the atom's

attracting center,

we enter upon a vast inner space.

At last the carbon nucleus,

so massive and so small.

This carbon nucleus is made up

of 6 protons and 6 neutrons.

We are in a domain of universal modules.

There are protons and neutrons in

every nucleus; electrons in every atom.

Atoms bonded into every molecule

out to the farthest galaxy.

As a single proton fills our scene,

we reach the edge of present understanding.

Are these some quarks at intense

interaction?

our journey has taken us through

40 powers of 10.

If now the field is one unit,

then when we saw many clusters

of galaxies together.

It was 10 to the 40,

or one and 40 zeros.

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