You can scroll using left and right arrows. I love that they added in motion, including apparently proportional frequencies of light.

The atoms and molecules shouldbe shown with the spherical harmonic (sub)orbitals.

“Betelgeuse” is misspelled.

A linear version would be interesting and enlightening, but it would also be incredibly maddening. You’d have to choose between:

1) having the astronomical objects scrolling at a decent rate and having the small end of the spectrum rush by nearly-instantly
or
2) be able to see the small objects and then scroll SLLLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWLLLLYYYYY through the astronomical objects

All in all, I think that the logarithmic scale works best.

@Did (#2): He didn’t say that the Eames were brothers, he said that this example owes it’s existence to the Powers of Ten that the Eames made. According to this source though, I’m not sure it’s the Powers of Ten that this is based on. Seems these boys inspired by a video about scale within cells.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/page/scale-universe-cary-michael-huang-california-high-school-15573968

I think you mean this one: http://www.phrenopolis.com/perspective/solarsystem/

It’s incredible how the Universe can both be awe-inspiring (for the objects contained in it) and boring (for the vast, vast, *VAST* amounts of “empty space” between said objects).

You know what would be wild? Someone should do a version of this IN a linear scale. You’d have to be super creative with spacing, and the scrollbar would stretch for *ages*, but it’d be totally worth it!

Somewhere on the internet there is a linear scale model of the solar system. I remember seeing it several years ago (maybe the BA blogged about it?). You can spend hours scrolling through the black before you get to the next object.

Midway through, we are shown the size of the Ort cloud and the distance from the Sun to Proxima Centari. To my eye it looks to me that the distances are surprisingly close. If the Centari stars have their versions of Ort clouds, do they overlap with each other? Do they overlap with the Sun’s?

I had always understood that comets might be disturbed from their Ort cloud slumber by the gravitational tugs and pushes of other stars as we danced around the galaxy but hadn’t considered that the comets might come from a neighbouring star’s Ort cloud or that the interaction of the two might be responsible for the dive towards the sun.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/12/28/why-are-atoms-mostly-empty-space/#comment-463276

When I got to uni and started learning about atomic and molecular orbital theories, it blew my mind. I think this was largely because all preceding presentations of electron orbitals had been circular / spherical.

The same could be said of the nuclei – they, too, are not spherical.

Most of this stuff has been known for 20+ years. We should stop teaching a 1950s understanding of the atom and bring the educational tools up to date.

Having said that, there was a previous thread here that I killed by introducing just a tiny bit of atomic orbital theory.

The depiction of the atom is horrid. This is a video about relative size, yet we see helium, hydrogen, carbon, and water with orbits that are completely out of scale relative to the size of the particles. The way it is presented, you miss that the vast majority of an atom is completely empty space (sorta).

And don’t even get me started about the use of classic circular models.

Overall, it’s a good tool, but if you’re going to make a tool for science education, you shouldn’t ignore simple science.

It gets bonus credit for me by including Pluto’s moons and so many of the ice dwarf planets too.

Plus I’ve learnt a few things too such as the existence of Amphilicoelias Fragilimus, yoctometers and the Minecraft World.

Is it just me though or does the string – presumably quantum / cosmological variety not hardware store type – look (impossibly?) smaller than the Planck length?

Oh, you want to multitask your listening?

Kids these days…. Grumble grumble….

….Why, back in MY day……

Vagueofgodalming, to turn off the music, click on the two musical notes at the upper right corner.

One can also hit the off switch on one’s speakers, too….