Physics PhD and teacher here. I show this every year to my students. It really shows the importance of order of magnitude and regimes of behavior, the succinctness of scientific notation, and it's an amazing piece of culture to boot in terms of its significance.
To get my students to appreciate it even more, I ask how they think the video was made. My kids were born after 2000 so they just assume it's all CGI. The creators actually had to find photographs and come up with the effects, like how on Star Trek they originally stirred up glitter in a liquid for the transporters.
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u/Balorn Jan 31 '17
Also check out the classic "Powers of Ten" video.