Scale of the Universe
Posted by: Peter Rillero in All Grade Levels, Earth Science, On-Line Learning, Science Activities, Simulations, astronomy, computer assisted instruction, science education, science materials, tags: George Awad, powers of 10, powers of ten, scale, universeBack in 1985 I was fortunate enough to visit George Awad’s New York studio where he was using his architectural skills and space interests to construct a scale model of the universe. Awad used one million of his own dollars to make this and it was very impressive and enlightening.
This is how Carl Sagan (1997) described it in his book THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark:
Perhaps the grandest museum exhibit can’t be seen. It has no home: George Awad is one of the leading architectural model makers in America, specializing in skyscrapers. He is also a dedicated student of astronomy who has made a spectacular model of the Universe. Starting with a prosaic scene on Earth, and following a scheme proposed by the designers Charles and Ray Eames, he goes progressively by factors of ten to show us the whole Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way and the Universe. Every astronomical body is meticulously detailed. You can lose yourself in them. It’s one of the best tools I know of to explain the scale and nature of the Universe to children. Isaac Asimov described it as ‘the most imaginative representation of the universe that I have ever seen, or could have conceived of. I could have wandered through it for hours, seeing something new at every turn that I hadn’t observed before.’ Versions of it ought to be available throughout the country – for stirring the imagination, for inspiration and for teaching. But instead, Mr Awad cannot give this exhibit to any major science museum in the country. No one is willing to devote to it the floor space needed. As I write, it still sits forlornly, crated in storage.
In my office, I have the model of the Big Dipper that George Awad gave me during that 1985 visit. After seeing so many 2-dimensional drawings of the big dipper, the model is a 3-dimensional view that shows how relative size and distance influence what we see in the night sky.
Then there was the famous Powers of Ten Video (or applet) that gave us the broad view of the universe and kept on magnifying by ten, until we arrived in Florida, and then descended into a plant.
Now the folks at Primax Studio have done their own Scale of the Universe with drawn images, instead of partially using photographs, but the music and the interactive aspects make it delightful to explore. 
The scale of the universe is difficult to fully appreciate but we are getting closer due to multimedia tools. A 3-d Imax movie will soon be in theaters.
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