Wednesday, July 3, 2013
I Once Was Blind But Now Can Click and Drag
Every few months, a different friend of mine posts a link to this sliding scale of the universe, which you've seen before (and will surely enjoy again)--the most recent just this week. This latest resharing led me to wonder anew about the site's appeal, and reminded me of this incredible journey. As the title suggests, click and drag on the last, largest frame of the comic. Make sure you have some free time before you begin. For Saturday, please patiently explore these wells of perspective. Find and note moments of cross-over (perhaps open both, each in its own window...). Describe what you find, how your shifting and expanding perspective develops your understanding of the whole (as you know it), and, you guessed it, extract a knowledge question. Please post by local noon on Saturday 6 June.
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Well, my finger is tired but I liked that. The sliding scale of the universe was much shorter!
ReplyDeleteThe sliding scale of the universe was looking at the things in perspective to size. We did something similar to this in the beginning of the year in biology. It was crazy to find out how small things are and how big things are compared to us humans. By the end I wanted it to continue to see smaller and smaller things but I guess there has to be "the" smallest thing. My perspective has definitely been put to some sense to the universe. I have always known that the universe was huge but seeing how humans fit in was amazing.
Looking at both, I was sort of just waiting for them to be finished because it was taking a while. However, once I got to the end of each I was kind of sad they were both finished. They both began and I knew about the scale of the universe one, but for the incredible journey I had no idea what to expect. I really liked the writing on the comic because it was really how the "dragging" played out. It began with the little person saying "I just didn't expect it to be so BIG." It was really big in proportion to the person, and like I am, it was something I would say. It was sad at points was the entirety was quite wonderful. And it finished with a question of "I wonder where I'll float next?" Normally at the end of things, I tend to think about what will happen next which I believe is a human instinct. I really was wondering what was next…I kept dragging even though it wasn't moving. The little person with the balloon went through so many things up and down and to and fro. The world/universe is so big there are unimaginable boundaries. For the incredible journey however there was a final ending point but it go to show in the real world that things are limitless and it is up to you where you want to go next.
They both revolve around a person, whether it starts with one, or travels throughout. They differ in layout but that helped with gaining perspective. Seeing perspective of how things are in relation to size is amazing. The universe one was more in relation to size because the incredible journey is only about one person and his journey - his size stays steady even though the things around him change in size.
It is important to understand where humans fit into the universe because sometimes we think we are bigger than we really are - which can be dangerous.
Knowledge Question: To what extent does our (humans) size affect how we perceive the rest of the universe?
To what extent are humans the most powerful "thing" in the universe?
Tina writes: I clicked on the Saguaro Cactus and the Oak Tree respectively. I found out that the Saguaro Cactus takes about 75 years to fully grow an arm, but humans become mature in 20 years. Also, the Oak Tree lives longer than humans do. Both of them gave me a feeling that we, as individual human beings, can only live in this world in a very limited time period, and we can never explore the world fully. That reminds me of the cartoon. In the cartoon, the human looks so tiny compared to the land and the tree. When we only look at ourselves, we think that we are big, and we can do most of the things we want. However, when we compare ourselves to the whole universe, we are so powerless. The largest man-made object I found in the Scale was the Palm Jebel Ali, which is about 8000 meters long. Although it is already a huge object, the whole universe is about 1000000000000000000000000000 meters long. They are totally two definitions of “large”.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the last time I opened this website, I did not notice that there were objects smaller than 1 meter, but this time I did. In my daily life, I usually notice the bigger objects first, and sometimes even ignore the smaller ones. However, the smaller ones are often essential to the bigger objects; without them, the bigger ones cannot exist. For example, the atoms make up of most of (if not all of) the objects in the universe. If there is something big, there is something small. Without either one of them, the other one would lose its meaning. From what I discovered, I extracted a knowledge question: To what extent do people use relativity trying to define an absolute?
The main difference between the Sliding Scale of the Universe and xkcd's Click and Drag is that Click and Drag forces you to explore the enormity of the world from a single perspective. You can't zoom in or out and get to the end of the panel (which took a while) any quicker, while with the Sliding Scale, the whole point of the animation is to change the way we view objects by forcing us to consider an infinite number of perspectives. In different ways, both scales are powerful in their ability to make us marvel at just how big or small our world is. The Sliding Scale by comparing objects which we considered large to other larger objects (and vice verse) and the Click and Drag by forcing us to travel the entire distance of the world we are exploring.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I personally found the Click and Drag to be more successful in making me realize how large the earth is. Maybe because the smallest objects in the Scale of the Universe didn't seem so small once they were filling up the entire screen. Or perhaps part of the reason Click and Drag makes the world seem so large is because it's tedious to keep scrolling for twenty minutes (although xkcd takes care of that problem with occasional quips).
I also found the Scale of the Universe to be more successful in making me realize how small the earth is. I tried keeping my eye on the earth and seeing how much more I would have to zoom out until I could no longer see it. I got to 10^9 which is miniscule compared to the largest scale of 10^27. This tiny feeling brings on a sense of helplessness and discomfort as well as making me wonder if size determines worth or importance. After feeling restless for a few minutes, I zoomed in to the tiniest possible existing objects in the universe, quantum foam and string. The universe cannot exist without the tiniest possible elements which make up its entirety.
Of course, the knowledge that tiny particles make up the entire universe is known to all (I hope), but the Sliding Scale reinforces the notion and shows us just how small and just how big. We think we've got the grasp of an idea in our heads and grow used to it, but when we're actually presented with evidence that illustrates the theory , the gap between reality and our understanding of it becomes clear.
Therefore, my knowledge question is: How is it possible, if at all, to grasp the idea of an infinite?
The incredible journey seemed endless! When I thought that I had reached a flat ground there was a bridge that people were under and on top of. There were people digging trenches and the holes went on forever and then went on a different path and then those broke off into 3 more tunnels and never seemed to end. I got lost about where I was. I was then curious about how far up or down each section went.
ReplyDeleteThe incredible journey put reality into a different perspective than the sliding scale of the universe. The scale is much shorter and it is one single object compared to another but never side by side. The journey is in one view but it is ever lasting much like the earth can seem if you fly over it. There are so many different places to do and places to go that it is overwhelming.
When exploring the incredible journey I noticed many little people each with their own emotions that could be inferred by their surroundings and their body positions. Some of them seem very happy in the middle of no where and then others seem so alone in the presence of other people and in the middle of chaos.
Perspectives are only what you make of them. If you are open minded and willing to be creative and not hold on to yesterdays struggles then happiness can be found anywhere. If the struggles of the past are holding you down then nothing but your own strength can bring you back up again.
Therefore my knowledge question is: To what extent do people control how their emotions of yesterday affects today?
I enjoyed the different ways that both the sliding scale and the incredible journey respectively portrayed what the authors saw to be an accurate representation of the universe. For one, putting things in order and being able to easily scroll back and forth between scales was the most logical way to organize their views. Another took their experience an instead created a larger, more intimate portrait of different objects' place in the world. The differences in representation are significant because they showcase how different perspectives an interpretations of the world and surrounding universe can change how people interpret knowledge. These two models succeeded in conveying the importance of perspective in not only their content, but also their configuration as compared with the other.
ReplyDeletefor example, both websites featured a large plane. On chose to explain how the size of this plane compared with it's surroundings by putting it into an organized list. The other chose to let the viewer observe it in it's surroundings and decide how they thought it compared. Looking at the incredible journey, I did not think twice about the size of the plane. Looking at the sliding scale, I was surprised to see how large it ranked compared to other things in the list which one might not ordinarily compare a plane to. Given all of this, my KQ is: How does the context and circumstances in which one receives knowledge change either the knowledge or the knower's perception of the knowledge?
The first thing I noticed about the click and drag journey is that its images were and black and white and they reminded me of an illusion that at first looks like one thing (in the picture I am referring to: a vase) but there is also another image inside (two peoples faces’). As a result when I was looking around the click and drag journey I was trying to see another image other than what was most apparent.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I noticed is that when I was looking through these two sites, at first I would take my time when browsing the different images, with the sliding scale of the universe I stayed pretty close to the human for a while (mostly hoping that the giant earthworm and Japanese Spider Crab were actually fake), and with the click and drag I made sure to not drag into a space that was completely white or completely black. I did this because I knew that if I did I would not have a reference point which could lead me back to the beginning. So, once I found the Mario part I decided to follow it to the bottom…but I never got to the bottom. After this I just decided that it did not matter if I got lost or not, the images never ended.
While searching through a dark area and then switching back to the sliding scale of the universe that was at its smallest scale, it occurred to me that these two were very much alike. For a while on the smallest part of the scale I had no idea what these things were, in reality I could not physically see them and I had never heard of them before, so they were very much like the click and drag picture to me; new and undiscovered.
KQ- Can a completely unbiased perspective exist? How are these perspectives judged?
One pair sums up the characters in this “click and drag” pretty well.
ReplyDeleteOne asks: “Wonder if there’s life up there beyond the stuff we’re covering up?” The other responds nonchalantly, “Nah.”
There are the curious ones, and then there are the content or fearful ones.
In The Scale of the Universe, the scale was set to humans. As I dragged on, it became apparent that humans are only a small part of the galaxy. It became stupidly blunt that the galaxy was a small part of the universe. I dragged out until I reached the Hubble Deep field where over 300 galaxies lay 12.7 billion light-years away. Some of us are fine with what is in front of us and some cannot resist the unknown.
What lies in those distant galaxies makes the scrolling in the click and drag seem trivial. Here, on earth, people such as me want to travel and see it for all its beauty and chaos. The click and drag does the earth a justice by making it seem grand and mysterious. But, in comparison to the scale of the universe, it seems as though I will never conquer much. To travel means to meet new people, new ideas and concepts. There are billions on earth— just imagine how many more are out there.
I’m tiny. I’m a spec of dust wandering until I get cleaned up. My KQ is: How does one define himself or herself? (consider relativity and thus dependence on others for a definition)