Awesome Flash animation from the University of Utah, showing relative sizes from a coffee bean to a carbon atom.
I wish it could also zoom out and show astronomical sizes, too, like this FSU slide show (not as smooth as the Utah one) or the famous Powers of Ten movie.
Delightful animation.
Note that breaking the scale into chunks[1] can be helpful when trying to teach/learn and remember sizes.
“I wish it could also zoom out and show astronomical sizes“. And have reference grids. And permit panning. And have multiple, thematic descent paths. And micrographs. And richer, animate objects. And be javascript and canvas, rather than flash, to permit richer interaction. And be embeddable in web pages. :)
So much of science education and literacy not working isn’t that we don’t know how to do them better, but that we’re not organized to care.
[1] Eg, “How Big Are Things?” http://www.vendian.org/howbig/