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[ Music ]
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A picnic near the lakeside in Chicago is the
start of a lazy afternoon early one October.
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We begin with a scene one meter wide,
which we view from just one meter away.
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Now every 10 seconds, we will
look from 10 times farther away
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and our field of view will be 10 times wider.
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This square is 10 meters wide
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and in 10 seconds the next
square will be 10 times as wide.
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Our picture will center on the picnickers
even after they've been lost to sight.
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100 meters wide, the distance a man
can run in 10 seconds, cars crowd the highway,
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power boats lie at their docks, the
colorful bleachers are Soldier's Field.
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This square is a kilometer wide,
1000 meters, the distance
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a racing car can travel in 10 seconds.
We see the great city
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on the lakeshore.
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10 to the fourth meters, 10 kilometers,
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the distance a supersonic
airplane can travel in 10 seconds.
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We see first, the rounded end of Lake
Michigan, then the whole Great Lake.
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10 to the fifth meters, the distance an
orbiting satellite covers in 10 seconds.
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Long parades of clouds, the
day's weather in the Middle West.
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10 to the sixth, a one with
six zeros, a million meters.
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Soon the Earth will show
as a solid sphere.
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[ Music ]
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We are able to see the whole Earth now
just over a minute along the journey.
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The Earth diminishes into the distance but
those background stars are so much farther
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away that they do not yet appear to move.
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[ Music ]
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A line extends at the true speed of light.
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In one second, it half-crosses
the tilted orbit of the moon.
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[ Music ]
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Now we mark a small part of the path
in which the Earth moves about the Sun.
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Now the orbital paths of the neighbor
planets, Venus, and Mars, then Mercury.
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Entering our field of view is the
glowing center of our solar system,
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the Sun.
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Followed by the massive outer
planets swinging wide in their big orbits.
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[ Music ]
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That odd orbit belongs to Pluto; a
fringe of myriad comets too faint
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to see completes the solar system.
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[ Music ]
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10 to the 14, as the solar system shrinks
to one bright point in the distance,
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our Sun is plainly now only one
among the stars. Looking back from here,
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we note four southern constellations
still much as they appear
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from the far side of the Earth.
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[ Music ]
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This square's 10 to the 16 meters, one
light year not yet out to the next star.
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Our last 10 second step took us 10 light
years further; the next will be 100.
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Our perspective changes so
much in each step now
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that even the background
stars will appear to converge.
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At last, we pass the bright star
Arcturus and some stars of the Dipper.
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Normal but quite unfamiliar, stars
and clouds of gas surround us
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as we traverse the Milky Way galaxy.
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[ Music ]
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Giant steps carry us into
the outskirts of the galaxy.
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And as we pull away, we begin to
see the great flat spiral facing us.
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The time and path we chose to
leave Chicago has brought us
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out of the galaxy along a course
nearly perpendicular to its disc.
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[ Music ]
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But two little satellite galaxies
of our own are the
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clouds of Magellan. 10 to the 22nd
power, a million light years.
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[ Music ]
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Groups of galaxies bring a new level
of structure to the scene.
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Glowing points are no longer single stars
but whole galaxies of stars seen as one.
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We pass the big Virgo cluster
of galaxies, among many others.
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A hundred million light years
out, as we approach the limit
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of our vision, we pause to start back home.
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This lonely scene, the galaxies like
dust, is what most of space looks like.
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This emptiness is normal.
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The richness of our own neighborhood
is the exception.
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The trip back to the picnic on the lakefront
will be a sped-up version reducing the
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distance of the Earth's surface by one
power of 10 every two seconds.
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And each two seconds will appear to cover
90% of the remaining distance back to Earth.
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Notice the alternation between great
activity and relative inactivity,
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a rhythm that will continue all the way
into our next goal, a proton in the nucleus
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of a carbon atom beneath the skin on the
hand of the sleeping man at the picnic.
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[ Music ]
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10 to the ninth meters, 10 to the eighth,
seven, six, five, four, three, two, one,
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we are back at our starting point.
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We slow up at one meter, 10 to the 0 power.
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[ Music ]
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Now we reduce the distance to our final
destination by 90% every 10 seconds.
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Each step much smaller
than the one before.
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[ Music ]
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At 10 to the minus two, one 100th
of a meter, one centimeter,
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we approach the surface of the hand.
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[ Music ]
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In a few seconds, we'll be entering
the skin, crossing layer after layer
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from the outermost dead cells
into a tiny blood vessel within.
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Skin layers vanish in turn.
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An outer layer of cells, felty collagen.
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The capillary containing red blood
cells and roughly lymphocyte.
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We enter the white cell.
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Among its vital organelles, the porous
wall of the cell nucleus appears.
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[ Music ]
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The nucleus within holds the heredity
of the man in the coiled coils of DNA.
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As we close in, we come to
the double helix itself.
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A molecule like a long twisted ladder
whose rungs of paired bases spell out
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twice, in an alphabet of four letters,
words of a powerful genetic message.
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At the atomic scale, the interplay of
form and motion becomes more visible.
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We focus on one commonplace group
of three hydrogen atoms bonded
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by electrical forces to a carbon atom.
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Four electrons make up the outer
shell of the carbon itself.
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They appear in quantum motion
as a swarm of shimmering points.
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At 10 to the -10 meters, one angstrom,
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we find ourselves right among
those outer electrons.
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Now we come upon the two inner
electrons held in a tighter swarm.
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As we draw towards the atom's attracting
center, we enter upon a vast interspace.
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[ Music ]
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At last, the carbon nucleus,
so massive and so small.
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This carbon nucleus is made up
of six protons and six neutrons.
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We are in the domain of universal modules.
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There are protons and neutrons in
every nucleus, electrons in every atom.
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Atoms bonded into every molecule
out to the farthest galaxy.
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[ Music ]
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As a single proton fills our scene
we reach the edge of present understanding,
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are these some quarks
at intense interaction?
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Our journey has taken us
through 40 powers of 10.
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If now the field is one unit, then when
we saw many clusters of galaxies together,
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it was 10 to the 40th,
or one and 40 zeros.
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[ Music ]
