interesting visualization
I just came from an interesting demonstration called a "cosmic walk". (People who were at NHC last year might have seen this there. I saw only its after-effects then.)
The presenter laid out a long rope in a spiral, maybe 8-9 feet across with spacing around a foot. (I'm too lazy to do that math.) Each eighth of an inch represents 1.5 million years. There is a pillar candle in the center and about 30 tea lights at designated places along the rope.
As one person walked the spiral lighting candles the presenter narrated. The pillar candle is the big bang, followed nearly immediately (the candles are too big to be accurate) by the formation of the universe. The progression then goes through various highlights -- the emergence of the first stars (much bigger than our current ones), the emergence of elements other than hydrogen and helium, the first cell, and so on up through the formation of land, contintental drift, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, the rise and fall of mega-fauna, etc, ultimately leading to the emergence of homo sapiens. The presentation mapped this to the days of creation in B'reishit. (The narration continued on with milestones way too close together to be represented as candles, by the way.)
What partcularly struck me with this was the clustering. I'm sorry I wasn't in a position to take a picture. After the initial flurry there are long stretches, billions of years, where nothing happens. (You could argue that the presenter chose the points to mark, but I -- not a scientist, to clarify -- did not notice any missing.) And then,, around the time of the dinosaurs, things start happening very quickly; the last dozen candles (maybe more) occupied only a few feet.
I found the spiral to be a more-effective representation than the conventional straight timeline, even though it's inherently distorting (inner legs are not the same length as outer legs). I wonder if that's just nifty or if it is in fact a better visualizaation in terms of conveying information.
The presenter laid out a long rope in a spiral, maybe 8-9 feet across with spacing around a foot. (I'm too lazy to do that math.) Each eighth of an inch represents 1.5 million years. There is a pillar candle in the center and about 30 tea lights at designated places along the rope.
As one person walked the spiral lighting candles the presenter narrated. The pillar candle is the big bang, followed nearly immediately (the candles are too big to be accurate) by the formation of the universe. The progression then goes through various highlights -- the emergence of the first stars (much bigger than our current ones), the emergence of elements other than hydrogen and helium, the first cell, and so on up through the formation of land, contintental drift, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, the rise and fall of mega-fauna, etc, ultimately leading to the emergence of homo sapiens. The presentation mapped this to the days of creation in B'reishit. (The narration continued on with milestones way too close together to be represented as candles, by the way.)
What partcularly struck me with this was the clustering. I'm sorry I wasn't in a position to take a picture. After the initial flurry there are long stretches, billions of years, where nothing happens. (You could argue that the presenter chose the points to mark, but I -- not a scientist, to clarify -- did not notice any missing.) And then,, around the time of the dinosaurs, things start happening very quickly; the last dozen candles (maybe more) occupied only a few feet.
I found the spiral to be a more-effective representation than the conventional straight timeline, even though it's inherently distorting (inner legs are not the same length as outer legs). I wonder if that's just nifty or if it is in fact a better visualizaation in terms of conveying information.