I first saw the Powers of Ten short on Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. (If you don’t know who Carl Sagan was, please don’t tell me. It will just make me feel terribly old and sad.) Way back in the ancient mists of time the Museum of Science and Industry setup a kiosk looping the video and I stood watching it over and over for as long as I could. That video had a big impact on how I viewed the universe and science.
There’s even an official website for the video and they claim that this year, on 10/10/10, they will be having special events. Nothing has been updated on the site since July, so I’m not sure if the plans are going forward. The opening scene is a couple having a picnic on Chicago’s lake front, west of the Adler Planetarium and east of the Field Museum. As the “camera” zooms away you see an aerial mosaic photo of Chicago. The Adler had a giant copy of that photo on a wall. I spent even more time staring at that picture than I did watching the video over at MSI.
I’ll have to do something this October 10th to commemorate this bit of my daydreaming youth. If there’s anyone out there with similar fond memories of this short film, please feel free to give me some ideas. Maybe I can place a geocache at the site where the video begins.
In the meantime, check out this great interactive feature (using Flash) demonstrating the scale of the universe as we understand it now.
Not to be a jerk, but you’re confusing “Powers of Ten” with “The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean.”
It has been years since I watched Cosmos, but I do seem to remember Sagan doing a “Powers of Ten” segment. Perhaps he didn’t use the Eames short and produced a different segment based upon the short?. Maybe someone who owns a copy (or has watched it more recently) can let me know.
Here’s a new homage to Powers of Ten by IBM