Learn something new everyday, is what I always say.
Today I learned that there is a zettameter, which is a sextillion 1021 meters and there is a yottameter, which is a septillion 1024 meters.
There is also, for really small stuff, a yoctometer! This is for really small stuff.
And do you want to see something soooo cooool that it will make you… I mean… you’ll just… it’ll completely….
Just go HERE.
(Let it load.)
(Don’t be afraid.)
(Fr. Finigan posted about this a while back, but he didn’t talk about yoctometers.)
Cool!
What this shows is that, at the sub-yoctometer level, the basic building blocks of the Universe are foam and string. But hey, didn’t we all know that already?
Gaaa! Father! You should not have posted this- I got sucked into it the minute I opened it. I read ALL of it, and I want to go back in!
WAAAAAAAY Cool!
Semper Fi!
jarhead, I agree, my kid and I just spent an hour zooming in and out!
Then we opened a bunch of windows to look up stuff we’d never even heard of before. . . . .
My laptop couldn’t really load it-too slow, a popup told me.
Loved the music, though……
That’s too cool!
WOW!
Cool! I didn’t see the Higgs bosun (“God particle”) or did I miss it? It is very small after all. Guess they haven’t found it yet at the LHC.
‘What is man, that thou are mindful of him?’
That was very cool. My kids loved it too! Thanks for sharing that.
Totally wonderful!
zoom’ n down like that from space made me nauseated… especially hitting that quantum foam!
Wow.
Fr. Z, I have been emailing the website to my friends and I am getting very enthusiastic responses back . . . especially from the nerdy types!
I started at the smallest and went to the largest and at the end I expected to find a picture of GOD. Coolest thing ever! You made our homeschooling day even better !!!
Does the imperial system of measurement have such cool units of measure, or is it just the metric system that’s so cool?
There’s nothing cool about the metric system. The same gang that replaced the tabernacle at Notre Dame with a Parisian prostitute is not going to to tell me how to measure things. The American/ Imperial system developed over centuries, organically. The Metric system was invented out of whole cloth by committee. Sound familiar?
Father – I’m glad to see you post this one. What you forgot to mention is that Cary and Michael Huang, who designed and built the site, are FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD twin brothers! More information is available at http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/page/scale-universe-cary-michael-huang-california-high-school-15573968
Very cool! A good thing The Great Attractor i yottometres away : ) !
APX,
The metric system is fine for scientists and theoreticians (e.g. my husband!) but when it comes to real-world, practical, everyday measurements, give me the English/Imperial system every time.
Any carpenter will tell you that. You will only try to do a framing layout or calculate rafter angles with a metric system ONCE. That’s all it takes.
The reason is that 12 is divisible in all sorts of useful ways, while 10 is only divisible by 5 and 2. And 8ths/16ths/32nds are actual measurable fractions that divide up quite usefully, while 10ths go right into 100ths (which are too small to use).
As much of a partisan as he is for metrics, even my dear husband does carpentry with the English system. And come to think of it his big fancy rain gauge is in inches, too.
As you say, it grew organically and it works because it’s been tested over centuries.
Stocks and bonds used to be measured in 1/2, 1/8, 1/16, etc. They finally woke up and started trading in decimals. The British used a 12-cent shilling and 20-shilling pound until they discovered the decimal system worked better. Sooner or later everything will be measured in powers of 10. But you can keep the yards in football and feet in baseball.
Amazing! Thank you Lord for all your gifts, seen and unseen.