This is for a small educational project relating "ancestor cones" to both social and ecological structures and evolutionary clades, with special attention to horizontal gene transfer. As an example, mapping the present moment would show something like:
- 1 self
- 5+/- immediate family
- 20~50 known close relatives
- 1~5k people who have been directly influential, favorably or otherwise
- ? members of tribe, ethnic group, nationality
- 9bn humans
- all mammals
- all chordates
- eukaryotes
- all "complete" living organisms (includes archaea, excludes viruses)
Estimates for total number of individuals for the latter two categories are scarce and speculative, but the scale probably needs to extend beyond 10^25. (Justification: 10^10 humans each with ca. 10^14 gut bacteria is already 10^24.) An ordinary log scale would require one or two axis breaks reducing visual clarity and impact.
Is there a name for a log-type scale in which intervals encompass increasing "distance" even when expressed logarithmically? (And just for fun, the opposite?) Was I supposed to have learned this in high-school?
Thanks in advance, and apologies if this is a silly question.
P.S. - In case it amuses, I also plotted log(sqrt(x)), the idea being what size circle of beings (of equal size) each stage represents. That might even be a more useful metaphor: we may be the crown of creation, and take up a lot of space - but there are a lot more of /them/!
Thanks!