A series of "Powers of Ten" is sequentially displayed, beginning with a square covering 1023 m on a side and progressing through 10-16 m on a side. The scale and description of what is being seen is given on each image.
9-12: 4A/H3. Increasingly sophisticated technology is used to learn about the universe. Visual, radio, and X-ray telescopes collect information from across the entire spectrum of electromagnetic waves; computers handle data and complicated computations to interpret them; space probes send back data and materials from remote parts of the solar system; and accelerators give subatomic particles energies that simulate conditions in the stars and in the early history of the universe before stars formed.
9. The Mathematical World
9-12: 9A/H1. Comparison of numbers of very different size can be made approximately by expressing them as nearest powers of ten.
11. Common Themes
6-8: 11D/M3. Natural phenomena often involve sizes, durations, and speeds that are extremely small or extremely large. These phenomena may be difficult to appreciate because they involve magnitudes far outside human experience.
9-12: 11D/H1. Representing very large or very small numbers in terms of powers of ten makes it easier to perform calculations using those numbers.
12. Habits of Mind
12B. Computation and Estimation
6-8: 12B/M9. Express numbers like 100, 1,000, and 1,000,000 as powers of ten.
Next Generation Science Standards
Crosscutting Concepts (K-12)
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity (3-12)
Time, space, and energy phenomena can be observed at various scales using models to study systems that are too large or too small. (6-8)
Phenomena that can be observed at one scale may not be observable at another scale. (6-8)
Using the concept of orders of magnitude allows one to understand how a model at one scale relates to a model at another scale. (9-12)
%0 Electronic Source %A Davidson, Michael %D 2006 %T Science, Optics & You: Secret Worlds - The Universe Within %V 2017 %N 25 April 2017 %9 application/java %U http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/
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