Week 9 Space + Art

In science classes before, I have learned the scientific notation, a method of representing numbers as the product of a number between 1 and 10 and a certain power of 10. However, it is the film Powers of Ten in this week’s lecture that gave me a more intuitive impression on how the perspective of viewing changes as the scale changes by multiplying 10. As the power of 10 goes up and the scale becomes larger, we can see how small we are relative to the universe we reside in and everything we care about is just small as dust. On the other hand, as we zoom in on the scale we can see the enormous number of atoms that compose cells and our bodies. Everything then becomes a complication built by precise physical laws. This worldview of comparing dimensions in terms of the power of 10 is also demonstrated in this week’s reading, the Powers of Ten Blog. In this blog, every number is expressed through the scientific notation and dimensions such as time and distances are compared accordingly.



Zooming in from the Milky Way to molecules composing human beings in Powers of Ten



Viewing humans from the universe

Both the film and the blog incorporate powers of ten into our life and enable us to conceptualize the difference between numbers such as a hundred and a trillion, which comes from and results in people’s increasing interest in the universe. Because the large numbers in astronomy in billions or trillions can seem very daunting and are unimaginable to common people, artists created films and literatures to help those fascinated by space understand what these numbers mean in the real world. Through enabling people to have a sense of how many planets like ours are out there and how long the universe has existed, these artistic representations can in turn stimulate individuals’ interest in space explorations. It is this self-perpetuation that keeps the universe a theme of fictions, films, and many other forms of popular art and motivates the development of space science.



An imaginary picture of the universe

 
Star Wars, a film series depicting adventures of characters in another galaxy



Works Cited

Eames, Charles, and Ray Eames. “Powers of Ten™ (1977).” Uploaded by Eames Office, 26 Aug 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0#action=share.

IconEye. Images from “Powers of Ten,” 1977 edition. N.d. Millard Fillmore's Bathtub. Web. 29 May 2017. <https://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/powers-of-ten-charles-and-ray-eames-brilliant-before-its-time-film/>.

Lucasfilm. N.d. Would A 'Star Wars' TV Show Even Work? Web. 29 May 2017. <https://www.forbes.com/sites/brandonkatz/2016/10/05/would-a-star-wars-tv-show-even-work/#64ebbe1d64eb>.

N.d. Space Art. Web. 29 May 2017. <http://7-themes.com/6982638-space-art.html>.

N.d. The Scale Of The Universe!!! Web. 29 May 2017. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-pFaqEup-Y>.


Powers of Ten blog. Eames Office, n.d. Web. 30 May 2017. <http://blog.powersof10.com/>.

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