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Video Lecture Notes 2

The film "Powers of Ten" depicts the scale of the universe by zooming out from a picnic scene in Chicago by a factor of 10 every few seconds, expanding the view to astronomical distances, before rapidly zooming back in below the microscopic scale down to the level of quarks. It was produced in 1977 by the husband-and-wife design team Charles and Ray Eames to illustrate that the things we consider large are insignificant on a universal scale, while things we consider small have their own complex structures. The film demonstrates a systems perspective by showing how subsystems at different scales work together to form a whole across many orders of magnitude.

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98 views1 page

Video Lecture Notes 2

The film "Powers of Ten" depicts the scale of the universe by zooming out from a picnic scene in Chicago by a factor of 10 every few seconds, expanding the view to astronomical distances, before rapidly zooming back in below the microscopic scale down to the level of quarks. It was produced in 1977 by the husband-and-wife design team Charles and Ray Eames to illustrate that the things we consider large are insignificant on a universal scale, while things we consider small have their own complex structures. The film demonstrates a systems perspective by showing how subsystems at different scales work together to form a whole across many orders of magnitude.

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Jay Naduvilekunnel

September 9, 2015
ENGR 498: Systems Design
Video Lecture Notes 2: Powers of Ten

Background
o Film depicting the scale of the universe on several orders of magnitude
o Produced/directed by husband and wife, Charles and Ray Eames
Industrial and graphic designers who made significant contributions to
architecture, modern furniture design, art, and film
Considered as some of the most influential American designers of the 20th
century
o Made for IBM; A film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe
and the effect of adding another zero
Begins with a scene of two people enjoying an afternoon picnic by Lake Michigan in
Chicago (1 meter wide shot)
o Field of view expands as the camera zooms out 10x every few seconds
o Emptiness is normal the richness of our own neighborhoods is the exception
Film then transitions to a rapid zoom-in to fields of view smaller than 1 m wide
o Begins at skin of the mans hand, continues to cellular views
o Stops at a view of quarks in a proton

This movie is spectacular, especially considering the time it was produced and released. Though
its presentation was not immediately unfamiliar to me (perhaps it inspired several derivative
works since 1977), it was no less eye opening. Its theme is simple: we are insignificant in a vast
universe, one that is little known and mostly unexplored. Yet, our own complexity cannot be
discounted. Suddenly the relevant are irrelevant, the enormous become infinitesimally small -all while harmony and intellect remain.
From a systems perspective, it shows how we have the power to design in detail from a top-down
approach. A system, even simple ones, may be broken down into subsystems that serve to
perform individual tasks. When these subsystems work together with each other, the system as a
whole may perform a desired function. In some cases, systems may be self-contained in others
for one to achieve a principal task. As a takeaway from the film, there is little room for the
ignorance of complexity.

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