Powers of Ten

The Powers of Ten is a short 1977 American documentary written and directed by Charles and Ray Eames. It depicts the relative scale of the Universe according to an order of magnitude (or logarithmic scale) based on a factor of ten, first expanding out from the Earth until the entire universe is surveyed, then reducing inward until a single atom and its quarks are observed.

Physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf noted: "It is a brilliant short documentary [...]. If I wanted to show an alien how we view the world, I would show this movie".

In 1998, Powers of Ten was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".