JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Several years ago I wrote about some triumphantly unusual images (plus one on the 1891 10-ton Eiffel Tower bullet) of the Eiffel Tower–today I’d like to add another, a queer image which manages to loose the Eiffel Tower (and the Great Pyramid) in representations of pig iron production.
I love comparison like this (which appeared in the Illustrated London News for 1910), representing big, hard-to-associate numbers of something against another quantity that can be instantly understood–the relationship between the two might be tenuous and complex, but at least it can give you some sort of handle on what would normally be an inaccessible, stand-alone number. Plus, any time that you can show what an ungraspable concept might “look like” and be explainable to a 10-year-old, well, you’ve got something.