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Friday, January 28, 2011

How big, really?

The things you can learn about at your local library!


How big was the radiation cloud over Chernobyl, really? Sometimes a visual helps put things into perspective. Imagine the 2010 flooding in Pakistan laid out across the Midwest, or the Great Library of Alexandria sprawled on top of your local library.

A prototype developed fo
r the BBC called Dimensions allows you to overlay noteworthy places, events, and objects onto the location of your choice. It has several options within nine categories: The War on Terror, Space, Depths, Ancient Worlds, Environmental Disasters, Festivals and Spectacles, The Industrial Age, WWII - Battle of Britain (it's the BBC, remember), and Cities in History. Simply pick the one you want and enter in a zip code or street address.

Check out http://www.howbigreally.com to compare the scale of the Roman Colosseum to your neighborhood. I can't wait to show a NASA fan I know what the International Space Station looks like when it's centered over his house!
Try it and let me know what you think.



PS - Hats off to Heather for introducing me to this cool new learning tool!

1 comment:

Gus said...

Ooh! Ooh! It's so cool! Thanks for the heads-up. Lots of interesting places and events to compare, hoping they'll keep adding more.

-G

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