[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Radiolab: What is the most average size thing

Sun Dec 29 19:06:35 PST 2024

 There have been several renditions of the concept of a "Cosmic Zoom": 
There was this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgfwCrKe_Fk
Cosmic ZoomDirected by Eva Szasz - 1968 | 8 min
This film probes the infinite magnitude of space, and its reverse, the ultimate minuteness of matter. Animation art and animation camera achieve this journey to the farthest conceivable point of the universe and then into the tiniest particle of existence--an atom of a living human cell--with a freshness and clarity that would seem impossible with other means of exposition. Film without words.
Then this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
Powers of Ten™ (1977) Eames Office  |  9:35 min:sec
Powers of Ten takes us on an adventure in magnitudes.  Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe.  Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only as a speck of light among many others.  Returning to Earth with breathtaking speed, we move inward- into the hand of the sleeping picnicker- with ten times more magnification every ten seconds. Our journey ends inside a proton of a carbon atom within a DNA molecule in a white blood cell.  POWERS OF TEN   © 1977 EAMES OFFICE LLC (Available at www.eamesoffice.com)
Leading to this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQGz76_1feY
A Cosmic Voyage w/ Morgan Freeman | 36:09 min:sec
Cosmic Voyage is a 1996 short documentary film produced in the IMAX format, directed by Bayley Silleck, produced by Jeffrey Marvin, and narrated by Morgan Freeman. 
(Unfortunately, You Tube does not yet support the IMAX format.) (Joking.)
Equipped with his five senses man explores the Universe around him and calls the adventure Science.
And most recently, this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44cv416bKP4
Scales of the Universe in Powers of Ten - Full HD 1080pYeşim Tomaç |  9:35 min:sec
Cosmic Voyage is a 1996 short documentary film produced in the IMAX format, directed by Bayley Silleck, produced by Jeffrey Marvin, and narrated by Morgan Freeman.
Cosmic Voyage has a format similar to Eva Szasz's Cosmic Zoom, and Charles and Ray Eames's classic Powers of Ten educational video. All were based on the 1957 book Cosmic View by Dutch educator Kees Boeke. Cosmic Voyage takes viewers on a journey through forty-two orders of magnitude, beginning at a celebration in Venice, Italy slowly zooming out into the edge of the observable universe. Then the view descends back to earth, and later zooms in upon a raindrop on a leaf on a hoop used in the celebration mentioned earlier, down to the level of subatomic particles (quarks).
And finally:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEprorLV0HE
A Tour of the Universe Using Powers of Ten and Scientific NotationLaunch Pad Astronomy |  10:05 min:sec 
Now that we understand Powers of Ten, we can take a tour of the Universe. Scientific notation allows us to express large numbers as multiples of powers of ten, such as the distance to the nearest planets, stars, the Milky Way galaxy, our Local Group of galaxies, and the universe as a whole.
These all use the powers of ten concept as their jumping-off point.
Taken all together, these videos are about as long as one of our meetings. We wouldn't need (or want) to use them all. 
-- Bob Primak 

    On Sunday, December 29, 2024 at 09:35:46 PM EST, Peter Albin via LCTG <lctg at lists.toku.us> wrote:  

It is a link to a search, not a video. It does not work for me either (Firefox, Window 11).

Peter

 On 12/29/2024 9:28 PM, Robert Primak via LCTG wrote:

 That link doesn't work in the Chromium web browser. 
  -- Bob Primak  

      On Sunday, December 29, 2024 at 09:18:05 PM EST, <jjrudy1 at comcast.net> wrote:  

    #yiv2641947558 filtered {}#yiv2641947558 filtered {}#yiv2641947558 filtered {}#yiv2641947558 filtered {}#yiv2641947558 p.yiv2641947558MsoNormal, #yiv2641947558 li.yiv2641947558MsoNormal, #yiv2641947558 div.yiv2641947558MsoNormal {margin:0in;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv2641947558 a:link, #yiv2641947558 span.yiv2641947558MsoHyperlink {color:blue;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv2641947558 span.yiv2641947558EmailStyle19 {font-family:sans-serif;color:windowtext;}#yiv2641947558 .yiv2641947558MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;}#yiv2641947558 filtered {}#yiv2641947558 div.yiv2641947558WordSection1 {}   
There was an interesting video made more than a decade ago that looked at, as I recall, size.  It started with a person, and then grew, piece by pice one order of magnitude to show what things are like at different scales.  Then it did the same thing backwards by 1/10 at s time.  I recall us showing the video at the club a long time ago.  Cannot recall what it was called.

See this video https://www.google.com/search?q=video+progressively+making+units+biggr+by+a+factor+of+10&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS1116US1116&oq=video+progressively+making+units+biggr+by+a+factor+of+10&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAEyCQgDECEYChigATIHCAQQIRirAjIHCAUQIRiPAtIBCTI1MDgyajBqN6gCCLACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f8c8d350,vid:0fKBhvDjuy0,st:0

John Rudy

781-861-0402

781-718-8334  cell

13 Hawthorne Lane

Bedford MA

jjrudy1 at comcast.net

From: LCTG <lctg-bounces+jjrudy1=comcast.net at lists.toku.us> On Behalf Of Robert Primak via LCTG
 Sent: Sunday, December 29, 2024 8:47 PM
 To: Lexington Computer and Technology Group <lctg at lists.toku.us>; Peter Albin <palbin24 at yahoo.com>
 Subject: Re: [Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Radiolab: What is the most average size thing

I agree about the second part being of a nonscientific interest. But nonetheless, of some interest, I think. (Not to our group for meeting purposes, of course.)

The first part is interesting from a technology point of view. The engineers in our group are always talking about doing "back of the envelope" estimates of stuff, and that's exactly what this segment was about. As with all such estimates, certain assumptions had to be made.

I was curious about why the idea of the Universe being 10^93 meters across (based on Cosmic Inflation, not the farthest that light has ever traveled) was rejected out of hand. That would have made the estimate orders of magnitude bigger. But the use of the Planck Distance does seem reasonable, because below that size the fabric of space-time seems not to be measurable as a distance.

Interestingly enough, at least a couple of sets of their assumptions led to the same result, but that might have been confirmation bias. 

Too bad this isn't a video, because that would make it more useful for a meeting. But maybe someone in the group who is much better at math than I am might try to develop a slide show based on these estimates, and explain where some of the assumptions may have come from. 

-- Bob Primak 

On Saturday, December 28, 2024 at 09:05:16 PM EST, Peter Albin via LCTG <lctg at lists.toku.us> wrote: 

Listen to the first half of this Radiolab podcast (~30 min) to answer 

the question:

"First, after graduating from high school, without a clear plan for what 

to do next, Laura Andrews started asking herself a lot of questions. A 

spiral of big philosophical thoughts that led her to sit down and write 

to us with a question that was… oddly mathematical.  What is the most 

average size thing, if you take into account everything in the universe. 

So, along with mathematician Steven Strogatz, we decided to see if we 

could sit down and, in a friendly throwdown of guesstimates and quick 

calculations, rough out an answer. "

http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/average-show/

If you are curious, the second segment ( specific moment in history when 

the world tried to find the "average" human body) is also interesting, 

though, less scientific!

Peter

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