SIZE is all. That is, if you join Philip and Phylis Morrison in considering the relative size of things in the Universe. In Powers of Ten (Scientific American Library/W. H. Freeman, pp 160, $19.95), you travel from the “breathtakingly vast to the extraordinarily small”, each scene taken at a different power of ten magnification. First published in 1982, the photographs still have a power to amaze. The series of pictures show a journey through the skin of a hand down to and below cellular level to where strands of DNA appear pink and fluffy (right). They then take you out into the Universe, where the stars coalesce into similar fluffy looking galaxies. A flicker book for the curious, the images appear with a thoughtful text that began as a film by American designers Charles and Ray Eames. W. H. Freeman in New York also sell a video of Powers of Ten.
More from 51¶¯Âþ
Explore the latest news, articles and features
Popular articles
Trending 51¶¯Âþ articles
1
Mathematicians stunned by AI's biggest breakthrough in mathematics yet
2
The Selfish Gene at 50: Why Dawkins’s evolution classic still holds up
3
Photos reveal unexpected details from the world's first atomic test
4
The distant world that is our best hope of finding alien life
5
Mystery of the ancient giant stone jars of Laos may have been solved
6
The ‘doomsday’ glacier’s giant ice shelf is about to break away
7
How I used psychology to come back from the worst year of my life
8
Why autism pioneer Uta Frith wants to dismantle the spectrum
9
Women’s body temperature rises from age 18 to 42 but we don’t know why
10
CAR T-cell therapy bolstered by stiffening up cancer cells first
