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Size of Life

(neal.fun)
2530 points eatonphil | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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js8 ◴[] No.46231747[source]
I would like to play an open world game (like Minecraft) where 1 in-game meter equals 1 micrometer in the real world. That way, one could get a feeling about the scale of things.
replies(1): >>46234800 #
1. mncharity ◴[] No.46234800[source]
Hmm, perhaps with flying? When stuck on the ground, people's feel for size gets poorer as things get bigger (tall buildings, clouds, map distances). I think of having 4ish orders of magnitude available for visual reference in a classroom (cm to 10 m), plus less robustly 100 m and km in AR. At that micrometer per meter, a grain of salt towers over a city skyline - "nano view" in [1] (eep - a decade ago now - I was about to take another pass at it as covid hit).

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

replies(1): >>46238777 #
2. mncharity ◴[] No.46238777[source]
Hmm, err, that could be misleading... 4ish for visible lengths in a large class. But especially in a small group, one can use reference objects of sand (mm) and flour (fine 100 um, ultrafine 10 um). The difference between the 100 um and 10 being more behavioral and feel (eg mouth feel) than unmagnified visible size. Thus with an outdoor view (for 100 m), one can use less-abstract "it's like that there accessible length" concrete-ish analogues across like 8 orders of magnitude. Or drop to 6, or maybe push for 9, as multiples of 3 nicely detent across SI prefixes.