Sunday, April 01, 2007

A new interactive site on magnitudes

This is a very nice, interactive version of the old "Powers of Ten" concept. It is entitled Nikon-Universcale. Ultimately interactive, each item can be clicked on and explored-- fun, fun. Each unit of measure is explained -- the meter is "The Unit that Measures the World", the centimeter the "Realm of the Palm" and the millimeter is "The limits of the naked eye". And so forth. Each has numerous examples that users can explore further. The way the line actually doesn't move, but grows, or un-grows, is a fabulous idea.

The concept of linking all of the scientific areas of study in a size-scale is fascinating! This site does it so well!

Take a look here.

Hat tip: web lense.

3 comments:

love2learnmom said...

A comment from Dr. Thursday...

That posting calls to mind this important line from the Bible:

"Thou hast ordered all things in number, and measure and weight.”
[Wisdom 11:20]

According to Fr. Jaki's Science and Creation (p.221): "Clearly,
if the Creator arranged everything according to number, measure, and
weight, man’s understanding of the world had to reflect a mathematical
character or, in other words, science was to be based on mathematics."

The verse is mentioned several other times in that and other books; notably, in footnote 8 in Jaki's essay "The Universe in the Bible and in Modern Science" in The Only Chaos and Other Essays:

"This phrase was one of the most often quoted biblical passages in
medieval writings, according to E. Curtius, European Literature and
the Latin Middle Ages
, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953), p.
504."

Ana Braga-Henebry said...

Thank you, Dr. Thursday! I grew up with mathematical-minded brothers and we'd often hear around the dinner table: "In the beginning, there was only mathematics"...

ScienceMom said...

Nice! Here's another powers of 10 page that we enjoyed.

This one is like a slide show, with a nice color picture for each order of magnitude.