CozmicZoom: An App That Will Humble You As You Explore Nature’s Grandness

Nature at its most minuscule and nature at its most gigantic are surprisingly similar. This is an observation I made quite a few years back. It was one of those observations that will suddenly light up in your mind, leaving you in a state of "wow-ness" for a few seconds at least.

I mean think about it. Think of an atom, that small particle which makes up the air we breathe, flows in electric wires and is the basis of, well, everything! An atom is made up of a central nucleus of protons and neutrons around which electrons rotate in an elliptical orbit. Now think about the planets of the Solar System orbiting around the Sun. Relating one with the other, the Sun is equivalent to the atom's nucleus and the planets are equivalent to the electrons. Granted, there are fundamental differences between an atom and the Solar System—the rotations of the electrons and those of the planets follow the different laws of electrostatics and gravitation respectively, for one—but the overall similarly is still pretty stunning.

Deep sea and vast space have also somehow appeared similar to a certain extent for me. Both remain thoroughly mysterious even as we gradually explore them more. The colours of space such as the matter splashed around during a supernova is very reminiscent to the beautiful colours of a coral reef and its marine life. Indeed, a few supernovae have names that confirm that I'm not the only one who sees such similarities: Crab nebula, Manatee nebula, Stingray nebula...

It's amazing that the two extremes on Nature's scale have such similarities. That's why the new Android app Cozmic Zoom (Lite and Full versions both from Google Play), independently developed by Patrick Godeau, is so gorgeous. It really opens your mind to the wonders of Nature's big and small. And it sensitises you to the grandness of this world—of this universe—we live in.

Cozmic Zoom opens with a deep-space view of the observable universe. Stroking your finger on the screen then gradually zooms you in the Milky Way, in the vicinity of our nearest stars and eventually into the Solar System. The Sun starts to show up as the faintest of dots, a poignant reminder of our insignificance in this universe. Zooming in further still takes you to Earth and to New York, the greatest occidental city of them all.

You've firmly left the realms of space then. Now the app shows you the world we live in. But only for a few fleeting strokes of the finger. The rapidity with which we leave our world is telling. Indeed, we live in only one cross section—one dimension—of this world. There is the big then there is the small. We're a thin line somewhere between. Crossing this line takes you to the world of the small and minuscule, from cells to DNA to atoms... Crossing the line—the transition—is golden however. It involves a human being but I will not say more here. It deserves to be experienced in Cozmic Zoom itself.

Cozmic Zoom is as beautiful as it is poetic. A lite version is available for free on Google Play although I highly recommend you invest in the little-over-$1 full version. If I have to summarise Cozmic Zoom with an "there's an app for that" meme, it will be "Humbling people: there's an app for that."