Dr. Fareed Tareen, DDS ← All experiments

FT—EXP—03  /  Design brief

FINITE

Make scale tangible

Your height beside an atom. A day beside eighty years. A million beside a billion. Choose two finite things, then drag through the distance between them.

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FT—EXP—03 · Interactive website · Three experiments · No account needed

Choose an experiment

A 1.70 m human is about 16 billion hydrogen-atom diameters tall. A billion dollars is 1,000 million dollars. An 80-year reference contains 29,220 days, using 365.25 days per year.

Interactive controls appear when the experiment scripts load.

Drag the scene or use the slider. Every journey is yours to start and pause.Explore the full app ↗

01  Concept

Numbers become real when you can move through them.

FINITE began with a human life: sand in an hourglass, a field of weeks, a timeline. The same question extends beyond time. How big is a human beside an atom? How much separates a million from a billion? A written number names the difference. Moving through it gives the difference a shape.

This website is a place to experiment. Pick two quantities, move the ruler and watch what fits. The comparison stays constant as the view changes. Nothing needs to be completed, earned or recorded.

The line it holdsWe compare lengths with lengths, durations with durations, and amounts with amounts. Each uses a shared ruler within its own experiment. Physical sizes use the stated reference measurements; atoms and galaxies do not have hard edges. Eighty years is a reference duration, never a prediction about you.

02  The instruments

Three ways to feel a difference.

Size / your place in the physical world

Start with a reference human, or enter your own height. Travel inward to an atom and outward to a galaxy. Both measurements stay on the same scale, even when one slips below a pixel.

Time / a moment inside a span

Place a second beside a day, or a week beside a year. Zoom until the smaller duration fills the view, then return to see the larger span. Every reference is a fixed duration.

Money / the distance between magnitudes

Move between a dollar, a million and a billion. The length represents an amount in US dollars; the experiment uses exact powers of ten, independent of changing economic totals.

03  Branding

Quiet instruments, warm ink.

The identity is an instrument panel from a slower century: near-black shell, cream headlines set in Sora, and two sands — violet for what is spent, cyan for what may remain. Nothing glows for attention. The interface treats the viewer as someone contemplating, not converting.

FINITE — an hourglass: violet sand fallen, cyan sand still to fall, one cream grain at the waist

Nothing had to be invented. An hourglass is the one instrument people read without being taught, and the only shape that shows both quantities at once: what has gone, and what has not.

  • Two sands, two colours. Violet is what is spent, cyan is what may remain — the same pair that marks quantity A and quantity B in every experiment on this page.
  • The cream grain is the present. One dot at the waist, the only pure light in the mark. It is where the viewer is standing.
  • It never animates. A logo that drained would be a countdown, and Finite does not predict anyone's death. The glass is held still on purpose.
  • The ring is the bezel, not the subject. Slate, one weight, no glow.
  • Square by default. Apple and Android cut their own corners, so the file ships full-bleed and lets each platform mask it.

And one thing more, since Finite. The other experiments act on the body — how we live, how we train, how we take care of ourselves. This one acts on attention: it asks you to hold a quantity in mind until it means something. That is a cognitive instrument rather than a physical one, and the identity has to carry it — which is why nothing here glows, hurries, or congratulates. Reflection is the fourth thing the work is for.

The palette, in the order it is spent

Shell#0C0E13
Ink · primary CTA#F2F0EB
Lived · violet sand#8D7CE8
Remaining · cyan#70BBC8
Positive#79B8A3
Caution#D1A06E
Risk#C77D7A
Line#292E3A

Eight tokens · violet marks quantity A, cyan marks quantity B

DisplaySora 200–400
InterfaceHanken Grotesk · 13–15px · line-height 1.7
Labels11px · .14–.22em · uppercase
NumeralsTabular, always — a counting clock must not jitter
Drag motionContinuous zoom · each equal step multiplies the ruler by ten
Guided motion450 ms focus · 5 second journey · always interruptible
Reduced motionAnimation removed, every number kept

04  Product principles

Curiosity sets the pace.

  • Experience it immediately. The experiments work here in the brief, with no sign-in, setup or app installation.
  • Every movement has a meaning. Dragging changes the ruler, while the quantities and their ratio stay fixed. Focus buttons and a slider offer the same exploration without dragging.
  • Small things stay small. A dashed marker locates a quantity below one pixel. It does not enlarge the measurement. The colored spans are proportional; illustrations identify the objects.
  • You control the animation. Start, pause or interrupt a journey. Reduced-motion settings keep the numbers and controls while making camera moves immediate.
  • Personal input stays here. The optional height is used only in this page and is not saved. Reference measurements and their sources are always available inside the experiment.

05  Continue exploring

A small experiment can change how a number feels.

Stay here and try another pair. The full FINITE app extends the idea into its existing views of life, physical scale and money. Opening it is an optional next step.

Try another comparison ↑Open the full app ↗