Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps
by Kees Boeke
(1957)
page 35
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Powers of ten: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 <> 1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13

-1. We have now come down to 5 centimeters above the girl's hand, and with a magnifying glass we can distinguish the grooves in its skin. On it we notice some small organisms (1): water mites and bacteria. They got there, probably, when the girl put her hand in the water of a ditch nearby. In the right hand bottom corner inside the quarter circle there is a bacterium, which however is so small that we can't see it. In the cut we see a section of the epidermis. In a real cut in a finger not all the detail shown here could be distinguished, but it is interesting to include it. The malaria mosquito is clearly visible: its large compound eyes (2), feelers (3), and jaws (4); also its proboscis (5), with which it is busy stinging the poor child. We see the flexible sheath (6) bent in a curve as it touches the skin.

1 cm. in picture = 0.1 cm. = 10-1 cm. = 1 mm. Scale = 10:1 (Enlarged 10 times)


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This content is from Kees Boeke's book, Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps. It has been placed online without permission.
Copyright (C) 1957 by Kees Boeke. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photo-copying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission.