Saturday, June 28, 2008

Credo 2: Add Another Zero

I believe: We have all the space and time we need.

(You know, in cosmic terms.)
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I lucked into going to the P.O. this week right after these stamps honoring Ray and Charles Eames came out (June 17, 2008), and I bought 5 sheets.

The Eameses were a wife-and-husband design team, famous for their chairs, among other things.
They also made 100 short films.

Exploring ways to teach physics, they created the 8 minute The Power of Ten [click to watch on youTube], which I count among the influences of my life.

It is "about relative size and distance...and the effect of adding another zero."

Starting 1 meter above a man and a woman on a picnic blanket, the scene pulls back every 10 seconds, each time as if the camera moved 10 x farther away at a 10 x wider angle. Then it zooms 10 x closer in and narrower. So it journeys deep into the universe and back into subatomic molecule--and in each case reaches empty space.

I often think of these perspectives when I'm feeling overly crunched or spaced out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

aaack, and I just bought a sheet of Frank Sinatra stamps 'cause it was all they had....

Fresca said...

I love those Frank Sinatra stamps, and I'm almost out. I'll trade you a sheet of chairs for a sheet of music when I see you next, if you like. : )