(1977) Made by the Office of Charles and Ray Eames for IBM. (

POWERS OF TEN

A film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe and the effect of adding another zero.

(1977) Made by the office of Charles and Ray Eames for IBM.(

The picnic near the lakeside in Chicago is the start of a lazy afternoon early one October. We begin with a scene 1 meter (m) wide which we view from just 1 meter (100m) away.

Now every 10 seconds we will look from 10 times (10X) farther away and our field of view will be 10X wider.

This square is 10 meters(101m) wide and in 10 seconds the next square will be 10X as wide. Our picture will center on the picnickers even after they have been lost to sight.

100 meters (102m) wide…the distance a man can run in 10 seconds. Cars crowd the highway…powerboats lie at their docks…the colorful bleachers are Soldiers Field.

This square is a kilometer wide…1000 meters (103m)…the distance a racing car can drive in 10 seconds. We see the great city on the lake shore.

104 meters…10,000 meters…10 kilometers…the distance a supersize airplane can travel in 10 seconds. We see first the rounded end of Lake Michigan…then the whole Great Lake…105 meters = 100,000 meters = 100 kilometers…the distance an orbiting satellite covers in 10 seconds. Long parades of clouds…the day’s weather in the Middle West.

106…a 1 with 6 zeros = 1,000,000 (1 million) meters…soon the Earth will show as a solid sphere.

We are able to see the whole Earth now, just over a minute along the journey.

10 million meters =10,000,000 m = 107m

The Earth diminishes into the distance, but those background stars are so much farther away that they do not yet appear to move. 100 million meters = 100,000,000 m = 108m

A line extends at the true speed of light…in one second it half crosses the tilted orbit of the moon.

1,000 million meters = 1 billion m = 1,000,000,000 m = 109m

Now we mark a small part of the path in which the Earth moves about the sun…now the orbital paths of the neighbor planets…Venus, then Mars, then Mercury.

10,000 million meters = 10 billion m = 10,000,000,000 m = 1010m.

Entering our field of view is the glowing center of our solar system, the Sun…

100,000 million meters = 100 billion m = 100,000,000,000 m = 1011m

…followed by the massive outer planets, swinging wide in their big orbits.

1 million million meters = 1000 billion m = 1 trillion m = 1,000,000,000,000 m = 1012m

That outer orbit belongs to Pluto. A fringe of the myriad of comets too faint to see completes the solar system.

10 million million meters = 10 trillion m = 10,000,000,000,000 m = 1013m

1014…as the solar system shrinks to one bright point in the distance, our Sun is plainly now only one among the stars. 100 million million meters = 100 trillion m = 100,000,000,000,000 m = 1014m

Looking back from here, we note four Southern constellations still much as they appear from the far side of the Earth. 1000 million million meters = 1000 trillion m = 1,000,000,000,000,000 m = 1015m

This square is 1016 meters…one light year…not yet out to the next star.

Our last 10 second step took us 10 light years (1017m) further. Our next will be 100 light years (1018m).

Our perspective changes so much in each step now that even the background stars will appear to converge.

At last we pass the bright star Arcturus and some stars of the Dipper…100 light years (1018m).

Normal but quite unfamiliar stars and clouds of gas surround us as we traverse the Milky Way Galaxy.

1000 light years (1019m)

Giant steps carry usinto the outskirts of the galaxy and as we pull away we begin to see the great flat spiral facing us. 10,000 light years (1020m)

The time and path that we chose to leave Chicago has brought us out of the galaxy along a course nearly perpendicular to its disc. 100,000 light years (1021m)

The two little satellite galaxies of our own are the Clouds of Magellan.

1,000,000 (1 million) light years (1022m)

Groups of galaxies bring in a new level of structure to the scene.

10 million light years (1023m)

Glowing points are no longer single stars, but whole galaxies of stars seen as one. We pass the Virgo cluster of galaxies among the many others. 100 million light years out (1024m) as we approach the limit of our vision, we pause to start back home.

This lonely scene, the galaxies like dust is what most of space looks like. This emptiness is normal. The richness of our own neighborhood is the exception.

The trip back to the picnic at the lakefront will be a sped up version reducing the distance to the Earth’s surface by 1 power of 10 every 2 seconds. In each 2 seconds, we will appear to cover 90% of the remaining distance back to the Earth. Notice the alternation between great activity and relative inactivity, a rhythm that will continue all the way into our next goal…a proton in the nucleus of a carbon atom beneath the skin on the hand of the sleeping man at the picnic. 109 meters…108…7…6…5…4…3…2…1. We are back at our starting point. We slow up at 1 meter = 100power.

Now we reduce the distance to our final destination by 90% every 10 seconds…each step much smaller than the one before. 10 centimeters (cm) = 0.1 meters = 10-1m

At 10-2meters…1/100thmeter (0.01 m)…1 centimeter… we approach the surface of the hand. In a few seconds, we will be entering the skin crossing layer after layer from the outermost dead cells into a tiny blood vessel within.

1000 microns (µm)= 1 millimeter (mm) = 0.1 cm = 10-3m

Skin layers vanish in turn…an outer layer of cells…felty collagen.

100 microns (µm) = 0.1 mm = 0.001 cm = 10-4 m

A capillary containing red blood cells and a ruffly lymphocyte.

10 microns (µm) = 0.01 mm = 0.001 cm = 10-5 m

We enter the white cell…among its vital organelles, the porous wall of the cell’s nucleus appears.

1 micron (µm) = 0.001 mm = 0.0001 cm = 10-6 m

The nucleus within holds the heredity of the man in the coiled coils of DNA.

1000 angstroms (Å) = 0.1 µm = 0.0001 mm = 0.00001 cm = 10-7 m

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 4 letters, the words of the powerful genetic message.

100 angstroms (Å) = 0.01 µm = 10-8 m

At the atomic scale, the interplay of form and motion becomes more visible. We focus on one commonplace group of 3 hydrogen(H) atoms bonded by electrical forces to a carbon(C) atom. Four electrons make up the outer shell of the carbon itself and they appear in quantum motion as a swarm of shimmering points.

10Å = 0.001µm = 10-9 m

At 10-10 m, 1 Å (angstrom), 10-10 m we find ourselves right among those outer electrons. Now we come upon the two inner electrons held in a tighter swarm.

As we draw toward the atoms attracting center we enter upon a vast inner space.

0.1 Å = 0.0001 µm = 10-11 m

At last, the carbon nucleus, so massive and so small. This carbon nucleus is made up of 6 protons and 6 neutrons. 0.01 Å = 10-12 m

We are in a domain of universal modules. 0.001 Å = 10-13 m

There are protons and neutrons in every nucleus, electrons in every atom, atoms bonded into every molecule out to the farthest galaxy. 0.0001 Å = 10-14 m

As a single proton fills the scene, we reach the edge of present understanding. Are these some quarks in intense interaction? 0.0001 Å = 10-15 m

Our journey has taken us trough 40 powers of 10. If now the field is “one unit” then when we saw many clusters of galaxies together, it was 1040 or 1 and 40 zeros.

0.00001 Å = 10-16 m