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March 30, 2007 9:17 AM PDT

All the glory of the universe, in a single Flash app

by Will Greenwald

Every few months, I come across something on the Web that completely blows my mind. This morning, a friend of mine sent me a link to Nikon's Universcale Web app. It puts the entire universe into proportion, from the smallest particle to the largest measurements of space.

From the femtometer to the light year, Universcale spans 40 magnitudes of measurement into a single cosmic Web application. It's really amazing when you zoom all the way out into stars and galaxies and then realize that every time you go a magnitude higher, everything you saw before, from the flea to Mount Everest, is contained in this tiny little grid in the lower-left side of the screen. Of course, the Carl Sagan-should-be-narrating-this planetarium music helps.

If you have a few minutes and want to feel really, really small (or really, really large, or really, really disoriented), check out Universcale. It will eat up your afternoon and enlighten you as to the true size and scope of the cosmos. Not bad for a Flash app.

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) (7 Comments)
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Where's the restaurant?
by kchendricks March 30, 2007 11:22 AM PDT
I was looking for the restaurant at the end of the universe, but they seemed to have omitted that.

This is pretty cool!
Reply to this comment
I just can't handle this much perspective, arghhhh
by EmmaFrost March 30, 2007 12:47 PM PDT
I'd prefer to listen to Grunthos the Flatulent
Reply to this comment
All this scaling...
by Christopher Hall March 30, 2007 1:03 PM PDT
All this scaling up and down has really made me want to play Katamari Damacy!
Reply to this comment
It is okay,
by ntw1103 March 30, 2007 1:14 PM PDT
It is okay, but you can't really compare anything
because you can't put the items next to each other.
Try out http://Merzo.net
It is a sci-fi Starship dimensions chart
The only down size, is that you have to use IE to drag the items around.
Reply to this comment
Nice app, but serious bugs (no pun intended)
by fleurya March 30, 2007 8:30 PM PDT
Tried navigating the thing, but it kept going crazy and wouldn't work right. No
navigation ability at all. Hope they fix it soon so I can really try it
Reply to this comment
The Powers of Ten
by thread_soul March 30, 2007 11:39 PM PDT
If you appreciate this, Charles and Ray Eames made a spectacular film examining the very same concept back in the 70's, titled "The Powers of Ten". Worth checking out: www.powersof10.com
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Universcale
by dutchman300 April 2, 2007 4:12 AM PDT
It is just a black screen. What is there to watch?
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