Cosmic View

Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps is a 1957 book by Dutch educator Kees Boeke that combines writing and graphics to explore many levels of size and structure, from the astronomically vast to the atomically tiny. The book begins with a photograph of a Dutch girl sitting outside a school and holding a cat. The text backs up from the original photo, with graphics that include more and more of the vast reaches of space in which the girl is located. It then narrows in on the original picture, with graphics that show ever smaller areas until the nucleus of a sodium atom is reached. Boeke writes commentary on each graphic, along with introductory and concluding notes.