The ''Powers of Ten'' films are two short American documentary films written and directed by

Charles and Ray Eames Charles Eames ( Charles Eames, Jr) and Ray Eames ( Ray-Bernice Eames) were an American married couple of industrial designers who made significant historical contributions to the development of modern architecture and furniture through the work of ...

. Both works depict the relative scale of the

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...

according to an

order of magnitude An order of magnitude is an approximation of the logarithm of a value relative to some contextually understood reference value, usually 10, interpreted as the base of the logarithm and the representative of values of magnitude one. Logarithmic di ...

(or logarithmic scale) based on a factor of ten, first expanding out from the Earth until the entire universe is surveyed, then reducing inward until a single atom and its quarks are observed.

History and background

The first film, ''A Rough Sketch for a Proposed Film Dealing with the Powers of Ten and the Relative Size of Things in the Universe'', was a prototype and was completed in 1968; the second film, ''Powers of Ten: A Film Dealing with the Relative Size of Things in the Universe and the Effect of Adding Another Zero'', was completed in 1977. The ''Powers of Ten'' films were adaptations of the book '' Cosmic View'' (1957) by

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

educator Kees Boeke. Both films, and a book based on the second film, follow the form of the Boeke original, adding color and photography to the black and white drawings employed by Boeke in his seminal work. The 1977 film has a number of changes from the prototype, including being entirely in color, moving the starting location from

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, removing the relativistic (time) dimension, introducing an additional two powers of ten at each extreme, a change in narrator from Judith Bronowski to

Philip Morrison Philip Morrison (November 7, 1915 – April 22, 2005) was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and for his later work in quantum physi ...

, and much-improved graphics. In 1998, ''Powers of Ten'', the 1977 version, was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Synopsis

1968 version

This version of the film has two clocks in the corner showing the comparison between the viewer's time and that of Earth time. As the viewer's speed increases, Earth time, relative to the viewer, also increases. It was installed in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum's Life in the Universe gallery at the time of the museum's opening in 1976, until the gallery's closure in 1978. There is also a 1968

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

film entitled '' Cosmic Zoom'' which covers the same subject using animation. It is wordless, using sped-up music during the return trips to normal size.

1977 version

The film begins with an overhead view of a man and woman picnicking in a park at the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

lakefront — a overhead image of the figures on a blanket surrounded by food and books they brought with them, one of them being ''The Voices of Time'' by J. T. Fraser. The man (played by Swiss designer Paul Bruhwiler) then sleeps, while the woman (played by Eames staffer Etsu Garfias) starts to read one of the books. The viewpoint, accompanied by expository

voiceover Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non- diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations. ...

, then slowly zooms out to a view across (or in

scientific notation Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small (usually would result in a long string of digits) to be conveniently written in decimal form. It may be referred to as scientific form or standard index form, o ...

). The zoom-out continues (at a rate of one power of ten per 10 seconds), to a view of () (where they are shown to be in Burnham Park, near

Soldier Field Soldier Field is a multi-purpose stadium on the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. Opened in 1924 and reconstructed in 2003, the stadium has served as the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) since ...

, then () (where we see the entirety of Chicago), and so on, increasing the perspective and continuing to zoom out to a field of view of , or a field of view 100 million light years across. The camera then zooms back in at a rate of a power of ten per 2 seconds to the picnic, and then slows back down to its original rate into the man's hand, to views of negative powers of ten: (10

centimeter 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the Electromagnetic spectrum, measured by the Metre and its deriveds scales. The Microwave are in-between 1 meter to 1 millimeter. A centimetre (international spelling) or centimeter (American spellin ...

s), and so forth, revealing a skin cell and zooming in on it—until the camera comes to quarks in a proton of a

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...

atom Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Every solid, liquid, gas, ...

at .

Related books

Related films

* '' Cosmic Zoom'' (1968), an eight-minute short from Canada. * '' Cosmic Voyage'' (1996), a loose remake of ''Powers of Ten'' in IMAX format for the National Air and Space Museum.
''Our Universe is SO big, it's mindblowing!'' (2021)

References

External links

* Official website:
Exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences
* * "Powers of Ten" essay by Daniel Eagan in ''America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry'', A&C Black, 2010 , pages 752-75

{{DEFAULTSORT:Powers of Ten 1968 films 1977 films 1968 short films 1977 short films United States National Film Registry films Documentary films about science Documentary films about mathematics American short documentary films Orders of magnitude Films set in Chicago Holism Films directed by Charles and Ray Eames Films scored by Elmer Bernstein 1970s English-language films 1960s English-language films 1960s American films 1970s American films