hackertube.io

Powers of Ten™ (1977)

Eames Office · documentary · Watch on YouTube

Scientific method & science communicationCosmology & astrophysicsDocumentaries & storytelling

What it is

The Eames Office's 1977 film Powers of Ten starts at a picnic in Chicago and zooms out by a factor of ten every ten seconds to the edge of the universe. It then zooms inward to a proton in a carbon atom.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters recommend it as the classic visualization for building intuition about scale, and it comes up whenever a thread concerns scale or size comparisons.

  • 9 people recommended it
  • 8 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2012, last 2025

What HN commenters said

  1. “is an excellent resource that is still shown in introductory university physics lectures”

    Excellent resource for building intuition on scaling

    coastflow, 2022-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Show HN: I Made a Stupid Game”

  2. “a classic video that demonstrates the scale of the Universe from the micro to the macro perspectives”

    Classic showing micro to macro scales by factors of ten

    vee-kay, 2025-11 · Strong recommendation · in “Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth”

  3. “Is a nice recap of just how vast the universe really is”

    Recap of how vast the universe is and how small we are

    jacquesm, 2015-10 · Recommendation · in “The Benefits of a Quiet Ego”

  4. “i remember being captivated by this film in the (mid? late?) 90s”

    Captivating film recalled fondly, now partly possible in realtime

    cam_l, 2018-08 · Recommendation · in “Google Maps is no longer a flat map”

  5. “It is a very short video, just 9 minutes long.”

    Short 9-minute visualization of scales in the universe

    _Microft, 2020-10 · Recommendation · in “A New Map of All the Particles and Forces”

  6. “For any who haven't seen it, I also recommend Charles & Ray Eaemes'”

    Classic Eames film on scale

    andosteinmetz, 2021-12 · Recommendation · in “Show HN: I rebuilt the Flash app “Scale of the Universe” in WebGL”

  7. “is I hope a fun video for anyone who hasn't seen it”

    Fun film that originated within Scientific American

    okhobb, 2022-01 · Recommendation · in “The Demise of Scientific American”

  8. “is short and simple but gives one a better feeling for what infinity represents”

    Short simple film giving a feel for scale versus infinity

    photochemsyn, 2023-03 · Recommendation · in “A Bad Trip to Infinity”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: powers of ten, eames, orders of magnitude, scale, cosmic zoom

Also recommended by the same people