How big is our Universe? | BBC Ideas

未能成功加载,请稍后再试
0/0

Trying to comprehend how big the Universe is is one of those questions that astrophysicists grapple with all the time.

Trying to explain it in a way that's easy to understand, well that's a whole other challenge.

In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames, hugely influential American designers, released one of the most elegant and creative pieces of science communication of modern times - Powers of Ten.

It took the viewers on a journey from a picnic blanket near Lake Michigan to the edge of the known Universe, and back again.

Over 40 years later, as a humble homage to this groundbreaking film, we're going to take a similar journey through time and space and see how our understanding has changed along the way.

As in 1977, we'll start with a picnic.

Though this time, we're on the island of Sicily in Italy, rather than Lake Michigan.

We'll start with a scene one metre wide, viewed from one metre away, and every 10 seconds, we're going to move out to 10 times further away, so the scene will be 10 times wider.

This square is 10 metres wide, and in 10 seconds, the next square will be 10 times that.

The movement may seem linear, but we're actually accelerating exponentially into the distance.

下载全新《每日英语听力》客户端,查看完整内容