I find it very hard to understand really big numbers relating to the cosmos or tiny sub-atomic particles. So I am trying to plot some big and small things on charts which start with the scale of a human being and go up to the scale of the universe.
Logarithmic scales
These are scales which stretch the axes of a graph to help show big and small things on the same axis. On a 'base 10' log scale each equal space represents 10 times the last one. So if the first division represents one unit, the second is 10 units, the next is 100 and so on. We soon reach huge numbers with lots of zeros.
To save writing lots of zeros, we can write 1000 as '10 with a little 3 after it' - the 3 tells us there are 3 zeros. So a million is '10 with a little 6 after it'. (Blogger won't let me write this properly).
Log scales don't have a zero-point, they just have smaller and smaller divisions. On some of my graphs I have ignored this!!
Log scales don't have a zero-point, they just have smaller and smaller divisions. On some of my graphs I have ignored this!!
Cosmic charts
So I'm experimenting with drawing charts about us and the cosmos. Please let me have critical comments and suggestions so I can improve them (ie don't just say 'awesome').
I used to have HUGE problems with numbers, till I studied electronics. There, it goes from 'Tera' (really fucking BIG) to 'Pica' (pretty small - but it gets smaller). I think it put it all in to some sort of perspective. As for the chart - it looks cool - do more please!!!! But how about some more axes? It's reckoned (by some!) that there were eleven dimensions in the original singularity - dunno how you represent that on a computer screen but it might be interesting to try :-)
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