Scale of the Universe

I thought this was pretty cool and wanted to share it.

An interactive animation for demonstrating the scale of the Universe from fundamental particles to galactic superclusters.

Plus, you get to learn geeky things like how many meters are in a Zettameter, or even in a yoctometer!

Super mellow soundtrack will take all your tensions away .....

www.scaleoftheuniverse.com...

reply to post by EthanT

One Zettameter = the distance to Zeta Reticuli?

Joe: "Aliens cant exists, the vast distance it would take to travel to Earth makes it impossible"

Bob: "Nuh-uh, the Greys only have to travel one zettameter!"



EDIT TO ADD

After playing around with that for a bit, I must say, that's a very cool demonstration, I even learned some things I wasn't aware of before, like the size of the ort cloud, and the distance between peaks of a gamma or xray, pretty amazing stuff. S&F for you, thank you for sharing.

BTW, any chance there's one of these in US standard units of measurement? I kid, I kid

what is the scale of the universe to a blind person? Isn't the answer to that question just as relevant as what the scale is to a sighted person? If everyone was blind, what would the scale be?

So much of what we know to be fact, is based on the very limited scale of our vision and the devices we create to amplify that vision.

Oh yeah, this is good. I have a feeling I will spend quite a bit of time studying this at some point in the next few days. And it has a "skip the ad" button, yay! Thanks for the find and the thread.

This one is nice also.

Nikon Universcale

Different.

The super mellow soundtrack was rather soothing. It really helped to calm me down after watching the new topics fire hose for a few hours, watching the daily show with john stewart, and the colbert report, along with todays MSM headlines. Thanks for that.

ETA: to be honest, after having more time to play with it, the entire thing has stopped making any sort of coherrent sense. I have only cognitively gotten up to the scale of a hydrogen/helium atom and already I cant comprehend the vast scale differences involved.

I am getting the same feeling I get when I look up into the night sky and see these tiny points of light, and realize that each point is a star just like our own sun, only many are MANY times larger. Our sun is host to so many things we have come to understand, yet we probably only understand 0.0001% of what is in our own back yard.

When thinking of the night sky in this manner you really feel tiny and completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things. After seeing this interactive graphic, and realizing that it is representing our current understanding of the workings of the universe... It only adds to that feeling of insignificance a thousand fold.

In terms of the universe I AM nothing, yet in terms of this graphic I AM the universe.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


Aww dude that Nikon one rocked.

I am both impressed and not impressed at the same time.
Why is that?
Well, I'll tell you, I am impressed by the diversity in size and scales involved, but I am unimpressed because I obviously do not appreciate the scales and sizes involved here. Oxymoron??? PERHAPS!
It may have something to do with not being able to see it all at once, which is how we humans seem to measure things.
I went from the foam of space time itself to the farthest reaches of time and space and everything in between with the flick of a wrist.
The human size, (my size), came and went and I hardly noticed the change.
I wish I could really feel the volume that encompasses me. After watching this I feel slightly unfulfilled because of my own limitations in understanding and appreciation of that which I find myself.

star and flag op

Maybe I am not thinking clearly, but scale to the red blood cell, white blood cell, mist/fog droplet... wouldnt 25 micrometers = 0.025 millimeters and not 0.25 millimeters?... something seems to have gone awry...

Sorry, my ETA sounded unnecessary and snooty, I redact it. Premise was that I am able to switch between different metric prefixes fairly easily (anything between pico- and tera- fairly easily) due to my training. This was the first discrepancy I noted. There may be others, I will have to look further, and would appreciate someone else to either confirm or discredit my claims.

It is entirely possible that the graphic is still to scale, but there was a zero dropped in typing out the text part.


ETA again: after comparing the relative sizes, it appears that the physical scale is still fairly accurate within this narrow range, its just that there has been a typo in this particular part of the graphic. I would still appreciate a third party confirmation or discreditation.

Originally posted by EthanT
I thought this was pretty cool and wanted to share it.

An interactive animation for demonstrating the scale of the Universe from fundamental particles to galactic superclusters.

Did you use search? It's been posted several times already, here's one:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Our hands can write lots of zeroes, but that doesn't mean our brains can truly comprehend such large or small numbers.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Did you use search? It's been posted several times already,

Of course it has, and it will be again, but is that really a bad thing?

Obviously, this could get annoying if it was posted daily, but if it is posted once a month, is that actually a problem? Each time this is posted (as long as it is not too frequent), there will be a few people who see it for the first time, and enjoy it. Those few, most likely would have never even thought to search for it, but stumbling upon it can be a nice break from the 'norm.'

This video, which was made in 1977, has most likely been posted on here before, but it is still interesting, and definitely food for thought.

Originally posted by BrokenCircles
Of course it has, and it will be again, but is that really a bad thing?

ATS policy isn't real clear but from their actions it's clear they don't want the same thing posted monthly. Exactly how often they will allow it is unclear. But take a look at this:

www.abovetopsecret.com...
They just closed that guys thread today, which reposted something that was previously posted over 3 years ago. So obviously they didn't want the exact same thing posted again 3 years later when there's an existing thread, right? If you want to bump an existing thread, you can do that, as long as your post doesn't violate the "one-liner" rule. It's not necessary to make a new thread each time.

This video, which was made in 1977, has most likely been posted on here before, but it is still interesting, and definitely food for thought.

Yes, it has...by me! But unfortunately, a few months after I posted it, the video was taken down from youtube, and couldn't be viewed anymore.

So I'm glad you re-posted it from someone who has re-uploaded it since then, it's a classic but it's still an excellent representation of how large and small the scales can get. I also downloaded it this time, so in case it gets taken off youtube again I'll still have it, and can re-upload it if I want.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

Yeah. I know the policy, and as Moderators, certain rules should be applied with no bias. A rule is a rule, which makes my opinion mean nothing. Regardless of my nothingness, it is just my opinion, that this particular topic, is one that doesn't hurt for it to be re-posted again (as long as it is not too often