Powers of Ten™ (1977)
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.
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.
Recommended by 9 HN commenters across 8 different months, 2012 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec coastflow · 2022-04 · on “Show HN: I Made a Stupid Game”
To build intuition on scaling, the 1997 "Powers of Ten" video is an excellent resource that is still shown in introductory university physics lectures: [this video]
Strong rec vee-kay · 2025-11 · on “Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth”
I think the video I have linked above is Google's tribute to this Power Of Ten video (linked below, thanks to user dtgriscom for sharing the link in another comment), a classic video that demonstrates the scale of the Universe from the micro to the macro perspectives in a scaling increase by a factor of ten for each scene. Power of 10: [this video] Another relevant video (thanks to user christev for sharing the link): A Brief History of Geologic Time: [LINK] Absolutely humbling to realise how infinitesimally small and irrelevant our existence is, in the grand scheme of theme. Nature and science are amazing.
Recommends jacquesm · 2015-10 · on “The Benefits of a Quiet Ego”
The base of that goes back to a very simple realization: On a cosmic scale nothing that we do is of great importance. This planet likely is not as special as we would like to think it is and we are not as special as we like to think we are. We are to the universe as a single bacterium is to us. [this video] Is a nice recap of just how vast the universe really is and how utterly insignificant we are within it, in spite of all we're figured out and have achieved collectively. It certainly humbles me.
Recommends cam_l · 2018-08 · on “Google Maps is no longer a flat map”
It is, i remember being captivated by this film in the (mid? late?) 90s.. (from the late 70s, pieced together by hand). Never imagined it would be (partly) possible in realtime.. some 10 years later. (eagerly hanging out for orbit view milky way, but probably not in my lifetime) [this video]
Recommends _Microft · 2020-10 · on “A New Map of All the Particles and Forces”
If you don't mind watching a nearly 50 year old video then I can recommend "Powers of Ten" [0], attempting to visualize the different scales on which things are happening in the universe we know of. It is a very short video, just 9 minutes long. [0] [this video]
Recommends andosteinmetz · 2021-12 · on “Show HN: I rebuilt the Flash app “Scale of the Universe” in WebGL”
For any who haven't seen it, I also recommend Charles & Ray Eaemes' "Powers of Ten" [this video]
Recommends okhobb · 2022-01 · on “The Demise of Scientific American”
I really liked the Powers of Ten article / film / book originated within SA which certainly doesn't justify any current editorial choices, but is I hope a fun video for anyone who hasn't seen it: [this video]
Recommends photochemsyn · 2023-03 · on “A Bad Trip to Infinity”
The 1977 film Powers of Ten is short and simple but gives one a better feeling for what infinity represents (40 orders of magnitude isn't much in contrast to infinity, but is very large): [this video] There's also an hour-long talk by Prof. Raymond Flood on Cantor's Infinities on YT that covers all the mathematical history.