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Thanks very much Tim. That's just the kind of binary/bifurcating thing
I was fishing for--something additive that would take the
concept to a new limit (height?). I've seen the technique
used in numerous astronomy books/mags in a way analogous
to key maps, but never systematically as powers of 10. If we
ever put the quick-time together, the astrometric views will
be in it.
You remind me of a real-world analogy to the earth
view/space view: when the Hubble Telescope was launched
there was a report of a similar (if not identical), secret,
military earth-oriented telescope put in orbit (as part of
the same Shuttle mission?). Because of their mass, each
telescope's orientation is essentially fixed as it orbits.
When aimed at the earth, the Hubble is shut down so circuits
don't blow due to high reflectance; reciprocally, the earth
viewer would be shut down due to "blindness" when NOT
looking at earth. The inefficencies were so obvious--why
not one, two-ended telescope doing something all the time,
or two two-ended ones orbiting in opposition? The
clandestine nature of the second, earth-viewing anti-Hubble
might explain it. But, if launched, I have never seen
further mention of it (or its equally flawed optics?).
I've also heard from a resercher at UCSB who added
simultanety of earth events to the concept. Conceptually,
this would hve added greatly to the "Day in the Life" photo
projects published recently. To which we are adding a
varient of the time lapse, "Twice taken" idea, using an
elderly lady visiting her childhood home, which is now a
ghost town in the Sierra Nevada.
LC
LC
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There is an excellent children's book on astronomy called
Exploring the Night Sky.
One section of the book shows paintings of the sky at increasing
distances from Earth, from (I think) one light-minute all the way
out to the largest known structures in the universe.
Whether or not this will help meet your needs, I can strongly
recommend the book for children and adults alike.
Tim.L
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You could use something as simple as pennies. It would be easy to show 10**0
to 10**3 after that you could talk in terms of putting them in tubs, trucks
trains, etc. You might want to mention pyramid schemes (usually powers of 6)
where the 11th generation would require more than the entire population of N.
America and the 13th generation requires greater than twice the world
population. (That's a lot of soap distributors!).
Greg Durocher
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Greg,
maybe we could use a virtual penny generator and rn as a
sidebar, paralleling the astronomical rise in "things" in
each photo? I can picture a stack of pennies getting taller
as earth recedes; or perhaps we should borrow some Scrooge
McDuck stills from Disney? Might migrate into entropy
and chaos concepts (with a diversion to fractals)? LC
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