From the Edge of the Universe to Inside an Atom! The Legendary Film “Powers of Ten” Reveals the Astonishing Scale of Reality
I’m Ken Kuwako, your science trainer. Every day is an experiment!
Imagine you’re lying on the grass in a park, enjoying a peaceful picnic. Suddenly, the camera begins to soar high into the sky, pierces through the clouds, exits the atmosphere, and hurtles toward the very edge of the galaxy… all in just a few minutes. Did you know there is a legendary film that lets you experience this mind-bending journey?
In my class yesterday, I watched a film called Powers of Ten with my students. I first encountered this video during a lecture when I was a student at Tokyo Gakugei University. The impact was so profound that I can still remember the exact atmosphere of the classroom that day. Though it was produced in 1977, it remains a masterpiece and a gold standard of science education that hasn’t aged a day. First, please take a look at the video for yourself.
From 10 to the 24th Power down to 10 to the Minus 12th! A Journey of Overwhelming Scale
The sheer brilliance of this video lies in its ability to zoom out from a single point on Earth to 10 to the 24th power meters (the edge of the observable universe)—
—and then plunge back to Earth, through a person’s skin, into cells, atoms, and finally all the way down to the subatomic world at 10 to the minus 12th power meters in one non-stop trip.
In science class, we often explain things like, “A hydrogen atom is approximately 50 pm (picometers) in size,” but honestly, numbers alone don’t really register with most people. However, through this visual experience, it becomes much clearer—more than words ever could—how the world we inhabit sits exactly “in the middle” of a vast macro-universe and an intricate micro-world. It is the perfect teaching tool for intuitively grasping the concept of scale (orders of magnitude).
A quick tip for teachers using this in class: if you’re short on time, showing the segment from the 4:46 mark onwards provides a condensed “dive” into the micro-world that instantly grabs students’ attention.
Changing Your “Time Ruler” with Tamori-san
When we expand our scale of “space” like this, the scenery we usually look at starts to appear completely different. The same can be said for our scale of “time.”
The other day, while watching the TV show Bura Tamori, I heard the host, Tamori-san, mention an eruption that happened 2,000 years ago. He casually remarked, “Oh, so that was quite recent, then.” Normally, we would think of that as ancient history, but if you use Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history as your standard ruler, 2,000 years ago really does feel like “just a moment ago.”
Tamori-san used a brilliant analogy: “If you imagine holding 4.6 billion yen in your hand, then 2,000 yen is just pocket change.” This perspective is what makes a scientific viewpoint so fascinating. By perceiving thousands or tens of thousands of years not as “forever” but as “a tiny fragment of time,” the dynamic activities of our planet feel much more immediate and connected to us.
To study science is to acquire new “rulers for space and time” within yourself. By shifting back and forth between the grand and the minute, your understanding of the world we live in will deepen in an instant.
I hope you all enjoy exploring the overwhelming scales of existence that science reveals!
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