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Summary and themes
In his introduction Boeke says that the essay originated with a school project at his Werkplaats Children's Community in Bilthoven. The idea was to draw pictures that would include ever growing areas of space, to show how the earth is located in an unfathomably enormous universe. Boeke then writes that he realized the reverse process—creating graphics of tinier and tinier bits of reality—would reveal a world "as full of marvels" as the most gigantic reaches of outer space.
The result is an absorbing voyage outward and inward from the familiar human scale. The ordinary photograph of a schoolgirl and a cat proves to be the starting-point for an insightful visit to levels of reality that can only be imagined, and about which little may be known. In his conclusion Boeke speculates that the imaginary voyage depicted in his essay may help "just a little" to make mankind realize the enormity of the cosmic powers that the human race has begun to master.
Critical evaluation
Boeke's clever essay attracted much attention and was included in Mortimer Adler's Gateway to the Great Books series. Many of the graphics are impressive realizations of the differences in size that lie hidden from our normal view. The graphics that show ever greater areas of the earth, for instance, are interesting precursors to the satellite photos now available on the Internet. Boeke is recognized in the credits to the short documentary Powers of Ten.
Boeke isn't afraid to inject some mordant humor into his essay. He puts a blue whale into his graphics, incongruously lying alongside the girl and her cat, to give an amusing idea of relative sizes. In his voyage into the smaller realms of reality, he includes an anopheles mosquito that looks like a creature from a fifties sci-fi movie.
See also
References
Gateway to the Great Books, edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 1963, volume 8, pp. 597-644
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