"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."