From 0 to 15 Nonillion Meters in 490 Seconds

June 8, 2013 10:31 PM

A scale parade of robots, star ships, space stations and pan-universal super beings.
posted by tarpin (55 comments total)

Geh, was it not completely, transparently obvious that those asinine scrolling wwwwwwwwww comments would keep people from being able to read the information?

Thanks, NicoNico. :P
posted by GoingToShopping at 10:45 PM on June 8, 2013 [3 favorites]

ok guys i've got an idea ok it's a giant robot that is bigger than the known universe i really think the kids are gonna like this
posted by Avenger at 11:16 PM on June 8, 2013 [9 favorites]

Gurren Lagann does not let such petty concepts as "reasonable" or "sane" hold it back.
posted by Grimgrin at 11:21 PM on June 8, 2013

Gigantor was 18m tall.
Godzilla was 100m tall.
But I still believe as I did when I saw the first Gigantor cartoons imported to America in the mid '60s that Gigantor could beat Godzilla. Easy.

Everything else was mostly irrelevant.
Never figured out which one was Voltron because so many of the giant robots looked alike.

(Still, I didn't realize from the Star Wars movies how much bigger Death Star II was supposed to be than Death Star I. Another Lucas FAIL.)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:23 PM on June 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

What's with the giant newspaper at 7:47?
posted by FJT at 11:25 PM on June 8, 2013 [10 favorites]

Row! Row! Fight da pawaa~!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:29 PM on June 8, 2013

Voltron was about 4 minutes in... I think... 40m was it?

What's with all the lion-breast-plated dudes?

It's missing M'gubgub, who, according to wikia is 8.51447556 × 1022 meters
posted by symbioid at 11:30 PM on June 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yeah, zoned out for a lot of the middle when it was just one mech/robot after another. Do want to know what the heck the newspaper thing was though.
posted by kmz at 11:36 PM on June 8, 2013

I think the big newspaper is the Sloan Great Wall. It's the closest size (1.30×10^25 m) that I could find.
posted by FJT at 11:39 PM on June 8, 2013

Tachikoma! Woo!

*gets something in eye*
posted by BinaryApe at 11:46 PM on June 8, 2013 [2 favorites]

I assume the Stardust Memory is the mecha Woody Allen pilots into battle?
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:56 PM on June 8, 2013 [1 favorite]

The Gurren Lagann soundtrack is just screamingly good.

Annoying that whoever ripped this from niconico didn't toggle off the scrolling commentary.
posted by Mizu at 1:02 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

What's with the giant newspaper at 7:47?

I believe it's the size of a piece of newspaper folded in half 100 times.
posted by Maxson at 1:06 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

For more of the same thing, there's also the Starship Dimensions page.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:10 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Tachikoma!

They were one of the best things about GITS: SAC
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 1:20 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Better video, without the scrolling text.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:21 AM on June 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

Good thing I don't like mecha or that might have triggered some sort of 72 hour anime fest around the hizzy.

Needed more Culture ships.

Also mods, please make MartinWisse's clutter-free link the post's link. FOR CLARITY.
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 2:10 AM on June 9, 2013

So. R2D2 is shorter than Mega Man, who's shorter than Astro Boy? Who's shorter than Arale?!

(You don't know who Arale is? She's from the manga Dr. Slump, the little girl with glasses right after Astro Boy, with ARALE on her winged hat. Despite appearances she is a robot -- and she's fascinated with turds! Technically she's in the Dragon Ball universe, and is actually in the Dragon Ball cartoon series, even in the US dub. Unlike Son Goku and company though, her continuity is entirely gag manga.)

Anyway, it didn't take long for that to devolve into Unrecognizable Random Pointy Shapes Stuck Together for me, with the occasional Optimus Prime, Gigantor, Tranzor Z, Big-O (at 30m) or Ultraman (40m) thrown in to make sure I'm still awake. The music really tries to sell it, but the price is just too high. "Fight the Pow-ah," sure, rapping Japanese dude backing up the opera singer.

Voltron -- aka Beast King GoLion -- at 60m. Vehicle Voltron, or "Armored Fleet Dairugger XV," at 66m. Godzilla at 100m, which seems a bit tall for him. The Yamato at 265.8m. Original Death Star at 160km, but weird winged space chick at 200m. The moon at 3,450km, but weird glowy thing with cutsy girl face at 5,000km? Sigh.

The idea of humanoid robots is somewhat laughable even at 1 meter sizes, but once you start getting to Bigger Than The Earth sizes, it takes on a kind of transcendent ludicrousness, a unique statement of our race's pitiful ego. What surface is such a droid going to stand on? It's going to take multiple seconds just for signals, traveling at the speed of light, to travel from one end of the thing to the other. That's not even getting to the big boy at 12 trillion meters, larger than stars and by all rights should be undergoing fusion itself. Then there's another humanoid robot at 50 septillion meters, followed by a rolled-up newspaper that no doubt has some great significance in Japanese popular culture. At 1.5 octillion, yep, another humanoid robot, wearing a cape no less, the fabric of which no doubt containing trillions of civilizations woven into its fibers.

Still, though, putting in a Katamari containing the King of All Cosmos at 2,000,000,000m made it worth sitting through, although obviously He is really much bigger than any of these things.

BTW: the Japanese words scrolling by are probably due to this originally being hosted on Nico Nico Douga, which lets users add annotations to videos like that as a "feature." This video's probably a reencode from there.
posted by JHarris at 2:55 AM on June 9, 2013 [8 favorites]

"It's the closest size (1.30×10^25 m) that I could find."

"I believe it's the size of a piece of newspaper folded in half 100 times."

A NYT front page folded a hundred times would be about 8.04958 x 10²⁵ meters thick (if not for, you know, atoms). So, that's within the same order of magnitude. In astronomical terms, that's an exact match.

I thought it was pretty amusing to go from supergiant stars to our region of the Milky Way to the Greater Magellanic Cloud to the Milky Way to the Local Group to ... more giant robots! Those feet will be very useful.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:04 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wait, I'm sorry. I'm an idiot: how could newspaper folded in half a hundred times be 8x10^24 meters thick? I know you can't fold it very much without it getting too thick but ...huh?
posted by Avenger at 3:21 AM on June 9, 2013

Ah, just goes to show what happens when I post a comment without reading the thread first, you guys already had half of my points covered.

I'm reminded of the sealed folder that The Tick was given in the eventuality that Dinosaur Neil's condition reoccured: IN CASE OF BIGNESS.
posted by JHarris at 3:41 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Avenger : I'm an idiot: how could newspaper folded in half a hundred times be 8x10^24 meters thick?

It can't, because of pretty obvious physical limitations. But from a "theoretical / thought experiment" point of view the constant doubling allows you to reach a massive thickness after fairly few (eg 100) folds.

A similar thought experiment is to put 1 grain of rice on a chess square, 2 on the next, 4 on the next, 8 on the next (etc). By the time you get to the end of the board you're trying to balance 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 grains on the last square. Exponential growth - fun for all the family.
posted by samworm at 3:43 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

You can keep folding that newspaper over and over, but just as you're doubling its thickness with each fold, you're halving its area, and it's not really too many folds before you've just got a vertical stack of single paper molecules, a minimum-thickness paper string. No more doubling there, not unless you're prepared to strike new theoretical ground on the subject of what counts as paper.
posted by JHarris at 3:54 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

But I still believe as I did when I saw the first Gigantor cartoons imported to America in the mid '60s that Gigantor could beat Godzilla. Easy.

You take that back! Godzilla beats everyone, always, for all time!
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:43 AM on June 9, 2013 [5 favorites]

*zzzzz*snort* What? What? Sorry, I went to sleep after the fortieth robot. Did I miss anything? Oh, there's the moon.
posted by Michael Roberts at 4:51 AM on June 9, 2013

"It can't, because of pretty obvious physical limitations. But from a 'theoretical / thought experiment' point of view the constant doubling allows you..."

That thought experiment is even more unrealistically abstracted in that it's, well, totally unreal. Each actual fold (as in, "the fold in the paper") is a curve and this creates an upper limit on how many folds (as in, "times the paper has been folded") are possible for a given thickness and length of paper.

So even if we lived in a universe of infinitely divisible fundamental substances (including "paper"), you'd still not be able to fold any given piece of paper a hundred times.

It was a bit of common trivia for a long time that you couldn't fold paper more than seven times. High-school junior Britney Gallivan famously proved that twelve was possible, both mathematically and by physical demonstration.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:59 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

I'm glad they included Hoi-hoi-san, but she really should have had a gun, not a sword. And it was pleasant that they included the Ooarai Academy School Ship.

I didn't realize that the second Death Star was supposed to be so much larger than the first one, though. I'd always assumed they were working from the same plans.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:47 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'd always assumed they were working from the same plans.

My understanding is that they were but they got the scale wrong. Like Stonehenge.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:55 AM on June 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

I didn't realize that the second Death Star was supposed to be so much larger than the first one

From the ROTJ novelization:

"The Death Star was the Empire's armored battle station, nearly twice as big as its predecessor, which Rebel forces had destroyed so many years before—nearly twice as big, but more than twice as powerful. Yet it was only half complete."

posted by ceribus peribus at 7:09 AM on June 9, 2013

It can't, because of pretty obvious physical limitations. But from a 'theoretical / thought experiment' point of view the constant doubling allows you-

ALL YOUR BASE TEN ARE BELONG TO US
posted by hal9k at 7:21 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

What's the 200m large suspended plant pot at 5:20 from?
posted by slater at 7:22 AM on June 9, 2013

Good to see Doraemon in there, though I have no idea how his height could be determined so precisely.
posted by Segundus at 7:29 AM on June 9, 2013

Judge me by my size do you?
posted by Foosnark at 7:56 AM on June 9, 2013

Thanks for the clean copy MartinWisse, although I do prefer the cluttered version, I think the scrolling comments add something bizarre and oriental to content that is already bizarre and oriental.
posted by tarpin at 8:17 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Imagine the size of that newspaper's printer!!
posted by pashdown at 8:53 AM on June 9, 2013

Uranus was smaller than I expected.
posted by buzzman at 9:27 AM on June 9, 2013

1. Somebody has a hardon for supersized animated robots.

2. What JHarris said

3. Uranus was smaller than I expected. This was presumably the non-Goatse version.

4. That is a metric shedload of giant fucking animated robots.

5. Did they not screen Cloverfield in Japan?
posted by localroger at 9:57 AM on June 9, 2013

Doraemon occupies a much larger slot in my brain than this graphic would have you think.
posted by arcticseal at 9:59 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

How do you invoke scale in your audience with something larger than the universe? Where are we supposed to be witnessing it, from the universe next door?
posted by Brocktoon at 10:06 AM on June 9, 2013

Due to the flatness of the background radiation, we now know that the actual universe is at least 64 trillion times bigger than the observable universe...so...plenty of room. How it stays together while both ends are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light is another question altogether.
Also...where's Galactus, devourer of worlds?
posted by sexyrobot at 10:20 AM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

"You can keep folding that newspaper over and over, but just as you're doubling its thickness with each fold, you're halving its area, and it's not really too many folds before you've just got a vertical stack of single paper molecules, a minimum-thickness paper string. No more doubling there, not unless you're prepared to strike new theoretical ground on the subject of what counts as paper."


As this is a thought experiment, shurely you can break into Quarks and fold using them in some way?
posted by marienbad at 10:51 AM on June 9, 2013

Sat through the whole thing waiting for Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, totally worth it.

I need to watch that show again. It took me a couple of tries to get into it, because it was interesting, but not as amazing as I'd been led to believe. When it picks up though, man. I spent probably the last half dozen episodes just absolutely losing my shit.
posted by lucidium at 11:04 AM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Regarding the big blue things at the end, *ahem*:

Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (超天元突破グレンラガン Chō Tengen Toppa Guren Ragan?, literally "Super Heaven-Piercing Gurren Lagann") is a transcendent god-like being formed during the final battle with the Anti-Spirals in the second movie adaptation of the series, The Lights in the Sky are Stars. It is 52.8 billion light years tall according to the offical guide book from GAINAX (仕事魂) and after transforming into a drill its length is multiplied 10 times.

And... Spoiler alert:

Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break - Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann forms a drill from Spiral Power out of its right fist. This drill is at least ten times larger than Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and, when it collided with Anti-Spiral Giga Drill Break, an equivalent attack from the Super Granzeboma, caused the very dimension the fight was held in to collapse on itself. This attack proved too weak to overcome the Anti-Spiral Giga Drill Break however, and only succeded because all other forms of Gurren Lagann took its place after it was destroyed.

Thanks lucidium, I think.
posted by tarpin at 11:14 AM on June 9, 2013

So, where would some of the Lovecraftian monsters be in this chart?
posted by FJT at 11:28 AM on June 9, 2013

"How it stays together while both ends are moving away from each other faster than the speed of light is another question altogether."

I don't think it works that way. Even within the observable universe you can have two galaxies that are moving away from each other faster than c. But this relative motion doesn't exist within an inertial frame and relative motion due to the expansion of the universe is not the result of an acceleration; space itself is expanding. Also, during the inflationary period, everything moved away from everything else faster than the speed of light.

But maybe you meant something else?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:30 AM on June 9, 2013

My pleasure tarpin. They also use galaxies as throwing stars. Don't think about it too much.
posted by lucidium at 11:42 AM on June 9, 2013

Hoihoi-san could beat 'em all!
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 12:00 PM on June 9, 2013

This must be what the stock ticker for the Nikkei index looks like.
posted by Apocryphon at 12:04 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

So, where would some of the Lovecraftian monsters be in this chart?

Wherever they want?
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:35 PM on June 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

"The Death Star was the Empire's armored battle station, nearly twice as big as its predecessor, which Rebel forces had destroyed so many years before—nearly twice as big, but more than twice as powerful.

The second death star in the video is more than four times larger than the original. The way the Empire thinks: the first one was as big as a small moon but they still blew it up? Let's go bigger. And more powerful! The first could blow up planets what the heck are they going to destroy with this one?

My understanding is that they were but they got the scale wrong. Like Stonehenge.

"The Empire. Nobody knew who they was or what they were doing."
        - The Mon Calamari band known as Spinal Trap

As this is a thought experiment, shurely you can break into Quarks and fold using them in some way?

Except the nature of matter isn't nearly so obvious once you break apart the atoms. Atoms are not as solid as they seem, they're nearly entirely empty space. If you take the electrons away from their protons, what's to define the size of the atoms?

It is 52.8 billion light years tall according to the offical guide book from GAINAX (仕事魂) and after transforming into a drill its length is multiplied 10 times.

Ah, GAINAX. Should have known. I'm suprised the robot doesn't have universe-sized breasts. And what's a drill that size supposed to burrow into?!

Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break - Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann forms a drill from Spiral Power out of its right fist. This drill is at least ten times larger than Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and, when it collided with Anti-Spiral Giga Drill Break, an equivalent attack from the Super Granzeboma, caused the very dimension the fight was held in to collapse on itself.

Oh, other impossibly huge thingies, my bad. Except if we're talking about entities whose size is measured in light-years then even simple movement is going to take cosmic time scales to accomplish, or produce relativistic effects.

This attack proved too weak to overcome the Anti-Spiral Giga Drill Break however, and only succeded because all other forms of Gurren Lagann took its place after it was destroyed.

I bet the Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break is made of solar systems each orbited by a hundred planets each housing a population of ten billion Son Gokus -- and not a single girl on any of them, lest Gurren Lagann's cosmic structure be foiled by space cooties.

So, where would some of the Lovecraftian monsters be in this chart?

Yog Sothoth knows the gate. Yog Sothoth is the gate. Yog Sothoth is key and guardian of the gate. Past, present and future -- all are one to Yog Sothoth. It is conterminous with all of space and time. While it has physical manifestations (which for some reason are driven to mate with human women, go figure), its true nature is more profound, and engages in sexytimes with cosmic forces beyond our understanding.

They also use galaxies as throwing stars. Don't think about it too much.

But it's such fun! And it well illustrates the dangers of letting your writers wank off a bit too much. You can make things of arbitrary size in the hollow spaces of your mind, but why unless you're just making the biggest biggest big that ever bigged a biggest bigger big.
posted by JHarris at 12:52 PM on June 9, 2013 [3 favorites]

why unless you're just making the biggest biggest big that ever bigged a biggest bigger big.

In the equal, it will be more than 10x bigger! And explode!
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:11 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

5. Did they not screen Cloverfield in Japan?

I kinda doubt that the Cloverfield whatever-the-fuck monster is part of the Japanese sci-fi lexicon, whether is screened there or not.
posted by Brocktoon at 1:18 PM on June 9, 2013

Your feeble Theory of Relativity is nothing compared to the power of the Spiral!!!
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:00 PM on June 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

You can make things of arbitrary size in the hollow spaces of your mind

That's FLCL, not Gurren Lagann! You're GAINAXing it wrong!
posted by davros42 at 6:54 PM on June 10, 2013

There's gotta be a snowglobe somewhere in GAINAX-something that connects it all together.
posted by Mizu at 8:14 PM on June 10, 2013