Universe in a Nutshell App | Hacker News Reader

Universe in a Nutshell App

shop-us.kurzgesagt.org

162 pointstosh28 comments

More context on the making of this here: https://waitbutwhy.com/2020/09/universe.html

Thanks so much for sharing this. It’s a favourite topic for me to read and be amazed at the scale of the universe and our planet.

You can see this (or similar) here for free in this awesome controllable animation, you can click on the objects for more info:

https://htwins.net/scale2/

(Credit to the original authors here: Cary & Michael Huang. I don't know if they are connected to the project in the app: edit: yes they are (as influence), and credited, see reply below)

From the Wait but Why post:

At some point in our pasts, we had both become enamored with two fun room icons, Cary and Michael Huang, known on the internet as the Huang Twins. The twins do a lot of cool things, but it was their Scale of the Universe toy that we loved most.

Inspired by their work, we decided to go for it. We wanted to make the best size explorer we could imagine. We called it Universe in a Nutshell.

Excellent, thanks for the info, I'd missed it going to the app. Edited to add that.

It is all so wonderfully massive it makes one wonder what lurks in the darkness beyond the bounds of light.

Contemplating infinity is sobering

Seems like a nod to Charles and Ray Eames’s “Powers of Ten” video (1977) might also be in order?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

My thought exactly. Maybe they felt they couldn't credit the video without opening up to some sort of lawsuit?

Also Boeke's Cosmic View (1957).

https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Boeke/Boeke1.html

Celestia offers a nice 3d representation of space. You can zoom out and see the solar system, milky way, local group, etc.

https://celestia.space

Kurzgesagt is an amazing group and their videos are fantastic. I’m a huge fan. So I try to support them anyway I can. The app is really cool too.

Meta: I had to read this title three times to guess what it might have intended to say. I suppose it would help if I had heard of this website before. I think "Wait but Why" could benefit from this capitalization, which is also used in the article, or just "Wait But Why."

This is what quotation marks are for. OP should’ve put both channel names in quotation marks to make this more obvious.

added quotation and capitalization, ty!

I felt a bit manipulated to be directed to their app at the end of a video to discover it costs money. The way it was worded didn't set up that expectation.

Maybe I'm wrong, did anyone else have that experience?

It just says there are no in-app purchases or ads. I don't feel misled.

From site:

> You can get it in your app store, there are no in-app purchases and no ads.

This suggests that pricing the app is the only revenue source. It is very reasonable that the creators aren’t just donating their work.

They sell notebooks and other items on that very same site, if you scroll down a bit more.

It's very possible I was being daft, but for some reason, I assumed this cost money until I got to that sentence. I guess it's because I still naively assume that any up-front price tag should imply a lack of ads, ergo such a caveat is only necessary if the app is already free.

IMO, they should have listed the price on the page. The other merchandise on their site has prices listed, and an app should be no different.

2 data points for iOS:

  USD 2.99 (US)
  EUR 3.49 (EU/AT)

seems reasonable, I wonder what the pricing is in other regions

Something around 27ish in Turkish Lira (₺), though definitely worth it even just for supporting WBW and kurzgesagt.

CAD $4.69 on Android

AUD $4.49

Can also change the country code in the App Store URL (if looking at it on a desktop browser) to see the pricing in each country.

How does one see the video? The link seems just to take me to a page with links to Android and iOS app stores.

It's at the end of their lasted video «The Largest Star in the Universe – Size Comparison» available on youtube( https://youtu.be/3mnSDifDSxQ ).

it is so tiresome constantly reading comments here of people complaining when cool things aren't given away for free.

I can understand that concern. But it leaves price changes in the future open (including perhaps making it free at some point) without having to delete and upload an edited video.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com