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Posted by eatonphil 1 day ago

Size of Life(neal.fun)
1627 points | 193 commentspage 2
thundergolfer 1 day ago|
Pretty glad the 9 foot long Arthopleura centipede went extinct 300 million years ago. No one wants to deal with that thing.
kkylin 1 day ago||
We've still got this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_aphroditois

Thankfully they don't live on land.

swiftcoder 1 day ago|||
That's fresh nightmare fuel all right
hermitcrab 1 day ago|||
Not really bothered by snakes, sharks or spiders. But those things (and cave centipedes) look terrifying.
adrian_b 1 day ago||
It was a millipede, not a centipede, which probably ate fungi or decaying plants.

So it was not a dangerous predator, though it could have been poisonous, like many modern millipedes.

bariswheel 1 day ago||
The music is so moving, tear inducing. One of the best links I've seen posted here and I've been here 15+ years. Well done Neal. I wish credit was given to the music, anyone know who created it?
hypertexthero 1 day ago||
The following from clicking on the i on the top-right after starting the show:

> Created by Neal Agarwal

> Illustrations by Julius Csotonyi

> Production by Liz Ryan

> Music & SFX by Aleix Ramon

> Cello performance by Iratxe Ibaibarriaga

Beautiful work.

gizmo385 1 day ago||
If you click the "i" info button in the top right, it'll list the full credits, including those who worked on the music.
runtimepanic 1 day ago||
Tools like this are surprisingly effective for teaching, especially compared to static diagrams. Interaction makes the scale differences stick.
abustamam 1 day ago||
When my daughter is old enough, I'm definitely going to show her a bunch of visualizations on Neal's site as supplementary education. I learned so much from these visualizations as an adult, and even without being able to read you can get a sense of scale.
mncharity 13 hours ago|||
> When my daughter is old enough

Fwiw, I've done a pinch-nail-hand-arms 1-10-100-1000 mm "body as size reference" a couple of times around 5ish. And a 1000x "micro view" "pinch is zoomed to arms size" "it's like a scale model or doll playset - everything zoomed together" world of "bacteria sprinkles, red blood cell candies (M&M minis or concave Smarties minis or Sweetarts - there's lots of cell candy analogs), hair poles, salt/sugar boxes". Stories of sitting on a grain of salt and eating... etc; pet eyelash mites. No idea if it actually worked.

I did some user-test videos, now only on archive.org.[1] Hmm... the "Arms, hands" video there now doesn't seem to play inline? - but does wget'ed and browsered. :/

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20221007220513/www.clarifyscienc...

abustamam 3 hours ago||
Hey that's cool! I like that idea
runtimepanic 1 day ago|||
Totally agree! Even as adults, the sense of scale hits differently when you interact with it. Your daughter will probably love discovering it too.
nrhrjrjrjtntbt 1 day ago||
I felt like I was at a museum exhibit. It is fantastic.
manlymuppet 1 day ago||
The music is phenomenal. Really, really phenomenal.
hmokiguess 1 day ago||
This was awesome! Also, I couldn't stop my child brain from anticipating "your mom" at the end.
foxrider 1 day ago||
Missing a mushroom from Oregon [1]

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-...

smallerfish 1 day ago||
I like it, but the switch from metric to inches is confusing, and I think introduces a bug - there's no way a sea snail is 5-6 neurons high.
robotresearcher 1 day ago||
Some of your neurons stretch from your brain to your big toe. 1.5m, or more in a tall person.
yesitcan 1 day ago|||
There's no way a tardigrade is half a sea snail.
smallerfish 1 day ago|||
Correct, but not the one on the site.
Mogzol 1 day ago||
You can change the units in the top corner. It defaults to metric for me, but if your browser language is "en-US" you get imperial by default.
ProllyInfamous 1 day ago||
CGP Grey does a similar video — spanning the sizes of our entire observable universe — called "Metric Paper" [0]

[0] https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI

Even if you've never taken a mild psychedelic, this video hits in a similar manner (as sober metaphor).

----

I still drive with Neal.fun's Internet Roadtrip (same OP link author), every time I'm out in my workshop.

kec 1 day ago|
These are all riffs on "Powers of 10", a film made in the 70's for IBM by Charles and Ray Eames: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
Jordan-117 1 day ago|
Reminds me of the classic Scale of the Universe flash toy by Cary Huang (now available in HTML 5!):

https://htwins.net/scale2/

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