Secret+Worlds+applet+By+Molecular+Expressions

=Secret Worlds applet By Molecular Expressions=

toc Read here about a website that is organized around the powers of ten.

=Overview= The Molecular Expressions Graphics and Design Team maintains a java applet programmed by graphic artists, programmers, microscopists, and technicians; it is hosted by Florida State University.

=Description= Molecular Expressions is an applet that displays one image for each scale.

Text From The Site
View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons

Notice how each picture is actually an image of something that is 10 times bigger or smaller than the one preceding or following it. The number that appears on the lower right just below each image is the size of the object in the picture. On the lower left is the same number written in powers of ten, or exponential notation. Exponential notation is a convenient way for scientists to write very large or very small numbers. For example, compare the size of the Earth to the size of a plant cell, which is a trillion times smaller:
 * Earth = 12.76 x 10+6 = 12,760,000 meters wide (12.76 million meters)
 * Plant Cell = 12.76 x 10-6 = 0.00001276 meters wide (12.76 millionths of a meter)

Scientists examine things in particular ways using a combination of very sophisticated equipment, everyday instruments, and many unlikely tools. Some phenomena that scientists want to observe are so tiny that they need a magnifying glass, or even a microscope. Other things are so far away that a powerful telescope must be used in order to see them. It is important to understand and be able to compare the size of things we are studying. To learn more about the relative sizes of things, visit our Perspectives: Powers of 10 activity site.

Note: - The sequence of images in this tutorial has been optimized for maximum visual impact. Due to the fact that discrete exponential increments are not always the most convenient interval for illustrating this concept, our artists and programmers have made dimensional approximations in some cases. As a consequence, the relative size and positioning of several objects in the tutorial reflect this fact.

© 1995-2010 by Michael W. Davidson and The Florida State University. The website is maintained by the Graphics & Web Programming Team in collaboration with Optical Microscopy at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

include component="page" page="portal to media" wrap="1"