Powers of Ten: 1977 Short Film by Designers Ray & Charles Eames Gives Brilliant Tour of Universe

In 1977, Ray and Charles Eames, the famous LA design­ers, pro­duced the short film Pow­ers of Ten. The movie starts with a fixed point in Chica­go, then zooms out into the uni­verse by fac­tors of ten. And, before too long, you find your­self 100 mil­lion light years away. Based on Kees Boeke’s 1957 book, Cos­mic View, the 10-minute film offers what amounts to a breath­tak­ing tour of the uni­verse. This clip was sent our way by Hele­na, who will get a free copy of the new Rolling Stones doc­u­men­tary, Stones in Exile.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!


by | Permalink | Comments (8) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (8)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • Helena says:

    I am glad you select­ed this video and look for­ward to the Stones doc­u­men­tary. Thank you. Hele­na @helkalin

  • Shae says:

    I saw this (or actu­al­ly I think an old­er ver­sion of it) at a col­lege ori­en­ta­tion pro­gram years ago, and became obsessed with it. For years I tried to find it and buy it and could­n’t find it at all, then I could find it but only teach­ers could buy it, then final­ly it went on the mar­ket and I got a copy.

  • Lars says:

    You’ve got­ta love that sound­track. It sounds just like the future sound­ed in 1968.

  • The video Sounds the idea that the pro­tons and neu­trons are present both out­side of the world and inside of the body.….….…..by the pow­ers of ten

  • Jeyaprakash says:

    May be you can watch in youtube more clear­er..
    Thanks for the video.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

  • paul says:

    this is the 1977 ver­sion. the 1968 ver­sion is dif­fer­ent than this.

  • Pat says:

    Pow­ers of Ten inspired many of us… includ­ing app devel­op­ers: see Cozmic Zoom on Android. Now you can zoom the uni­verse with a swipe of a fin­ger.

  • Matt says:

    I also remem­ber the 1968 ver­sion, it showed the speed and time dila­tion. Any idea where to see that ver­sion?

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.