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Scale of the Universe

by Daniel Evans
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Some more sciencey awesomeness:

Scale of Universe - Interactive Scale of the Universe Tool
  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    That's a pretty cool visual. For someone like me that never had to learn meters in school, all that megameter, gigameter, yottameter stuff didn't really tell me anything.
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    • Profile picture of the author taskemann
      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      That's a pretty cool visual. For someone like me that never had to learn meters in school, all that megameter, gigameter, yottameter stuff didn't really tell me anything.
      1 meter = 100cm / 3 feet 3⅜ inches
      1 Kilometer = 1,000 meter / 0.62 English miles
      Megameter = 1,000,000 meters
      Gigameter = 1,000,000,000 meters
      Light year (the distance light travels in one year in vacuum) = 9,460,730,472,580,000 meters / 299,792,400 m/s in vacuum
      Yottameter = 105,700,000 light years / 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 meters

      And if you want to convert meters to kilometers, then just divide the meters with 1,000, and you'll have the meters in kilometers. Or you can just take away the last three digits before the decimals!
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyMagnetMagnate
    Yeah, it is a pretty cool graphic representation - especially how you can zoom in / out.
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  • Profile picture of the author taskemann
    Here is the updated version: Scale of the Universe 2

    But personally I like the first version best.
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyMagnetMagnate
    They are both pretty cool...I like you can click on items for more info in version 2 - but I like the graph underneath the slider in version 1, because it gives you more slide control to tell where you are at...

    Both are good teaching tools - *(Gomez's Hamburger :confused

    What would be really cool, is if they could do this with human biology, where you could go into the body and into the respective areas of organs...then zoom into the microscopic breakdown.
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    So there actually is a reason somehow that they need the Yottameter measurement? I mean how relevant to anything is 105,700,000 light years? Geesh - I thought that they were getting nit picky with parsecs.
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    • Profile picture of the author taskemann
      Originally Posted by HeySal View Post

      So there actually is a reason somehow that they need the Yottameter measurement? I mean how relevant to anything is 105,700,000 light years? Geesh - I thought that they were getting nit picky with parsecs.
      The universe is big, really big. So when we're measuring long distances in space, it can sometimes be much easier to measure them in yottameters instead of gigameters, terameters, petameters, exameters, zettameters, or light years (light year also know as just "LY" isn't a SI-prefix) so we don't need to add a heck of a lot of digits to our calculation, to the note or whatever it is.

      It's like when we say 8 kilometers instead of 8,000 meters or 8,000,000 millimeters, it's easier.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    Thanks Jimmy. You know, meters/x-meters makes a lot more sense than inches, feet, yards and miles. However, when you've spent 50+ years thinking in those crazy measurements us old-timers learned in American schools, the only way a number of meters means anything to me is to convert it to the familiar distances I've always used. There is one exception to that though...

    I liked that link you posted to version two, because being able to click on the objects to learn more about them made it much easier to understand. When the Earth is 12,700 kilometers, how that relates to the Pistol Star, for example, at 470 million kilometers, gives meaning to the numbers by comparison.
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    • Profile picture of the author taskemann
      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      Thanks Jimmy. You know, meters/x-meters makes a lot more sense than inches, feet, yards and miles. However, when you've spent 50+ years thinking in those crazy measurements us old-timers learned in American schools, the only way a number of meters means anything to me is to convert it to the familiar distances I've always used. There is one exception to that though...

      I liked that link you posted to version two, because being able to click on the objects to learn more about them made it much easier to understand. When the Earth is 12,700 kilometers, how that relates to the Pistol Star, for example, at 470 million kilometers, gives meaning to the numbers by comparison.
      Yes it does. I have actually never understood the American measuring system. It's kinda old-school if you ask me. Inches, feets and all that is very old measuring standards that don't have any prefixes (as I know). That's why the metric system is so good to denote decimal multiples and submultiples of the metre!
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      • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
        Originally Posted by taskemann View Post

        Yes it does. I have actually never understood the American measuring system. It's kinda old-school if you ask me. Inches, feets and all that is very old measuring standards that don't have any prefixes (as I know). That's why the metric system is so good to denote decimal multiples and submultiples of the metre!
        Yeah, the base-10 number system has practical advantages, but it is what it is over here. Or was what it was, they're probably teaching both here now I'd guess.

        The day is divided in to two 12-hour units though. Just try to get the world to change from that to a base-10 system!
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  • Profile picture of the author MoneyMagnetMagnate
    Why did they call it a Yottameter?

    Why didn't they just call it a Lottameter? :p
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    • Profile picture of the author taskemann
      Originally Posted by MoneyMagnetMagnate View Post

      Why did they call it a Yottameter?

      Why didn't they just call it a Lottameter? :p
      That's because "yotta" comes from the Greek word "okto" which means 8 and it's a SI-prefix because it is equivalent to 1000-8.

      Yotta represents 10-24 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
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      • Profile picture of the author MoneyMagnetMagnate
        Originally Posted by taskemann View Post

        That's because "yotta" comes from the Greek word "okto" which means 8 and it's a SI-prefix because it is equivalent to 1000-8.

        Yotta represents 10-24 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
        "Lotta" still makes more sense... - and the next step up from that is "HellaLotta"...:rolleyes:
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  • Profile picture of the author robie
    Nice animations.
    I bet there are lot of things we still don't know. Yeah..a lot of..
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  • Profile picture of the author hardraysnight
    how long until a 1 yottabyte hard drive
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  • Profile picture of the author bailbondsguys
    That's really cool. It's always nice to see something that's fun, interactive and educational at the same time.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mark Andrews
      Banned
      Grab a very long roll of paper, now draw at the top of this piece of paper a hole the size of a pea. This is to determine just the size of our own solar system to scale.

      Now roll the piece of paper out 300 meters and here draw another circle. This is Jupiter.

      Keep rolling for another 2 /1/2 kilometers and draw another hole and call this one Pluto.

      On the same scale keep rolling out your roll of paper another 16,000 kilometers and you reach our nearest star Proxima Centauri.

      Even if you shrink it all down and now jupiter is this big ---> .

      And Pluto is now the size of a single molecule, it would still be over 33 feet away from the pea / earth.

      Now, let's stand on the surface of Pluto...

      Where's the sun? Well, with the naked eye you're going to be hard pushed to find it, yes it's still visible but it's comparable size is now the size of the top of a pin head.

      And this is just our solar system in scale.



      Mark Andrews...
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