Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps

Cover scans

Click a cover for a larger version.

Author: Kees Boeke
Illustrator: Els de Bouter
Writer of introduction: Arthur H. Compton
Language: English
Original language: English
Publisher: John Day Company
Categories: Children's and science
Publication year: 1957
ISBN: 0381980162
Online version: http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/cosmicview/
Pages: 48
Has read?: Yes
Debut?: Yes

Synopsis

Cosmic View is the inspiration for the 1977 IBM short video Powers of Ten. It's a pretty short book written for children (though it's very interesting for adults as well) about the relative sizes of things in the universe. The book differs a bit from the video, mainly in that it explores each scale at more depth.

The book starts out showing a girl in Holland, zooming outwards, each time by a factor of ten, 25 times (so that the scale ends up being 1:10²⁵). Each image is accompanied by a bit of explanatory text. Halfway through, the book then zooms inwards, ending at a scale of 10¹²:1, about the size of an atomic nucleus.

Review

I found the book pretty fascinating, if a bit short and not as detailed as I'd wished it to be. However, I can't hold that against it as it's really a children's book. I can heartily recommend it.