Putting Time In Perspective
Humans are good at a lot of things, but putting time in perspective is not one of them. It's not our fault—the spans of time in human history, and even more so in natural history, are so vast compared to the span of our life and recent history that it's almost impossible to get a handle on it. If the Earth formed at midnight and the present moment is the next midnight, 24 hours later, modern humans have been around since 11:59:59pm—1 second. And if human history itself spans 24 hours from one midnight to the next, 14 minutes represents the time since Christ.
To try to grasp some perspective, I mapped out the history of time as a series of growing timelines—each timeline contains all the previous timelines (colors will help you see which timelines are which). All timeline lengths are exactly accurate to the amount of time they're expressing.
A note on dates: When it comes to the far-back past, most of the dates we know are the subject of ongoing debate. For these timelines, it's cumbersome to put a ~ sign before every ancient date or an asterisk explaining that the date is still being debated, so I just used the most widely accepted dates and left it at that.
Now you can download a much prettier and less offensive version of this graphic here. Thanks to Visual.ly.
And here's a cool interactive take on the post. Thanks to PreziJedi.
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This. exactly. This is my ONLY nightmare. This is why I can't sleep at night. This is why trying is futile, why in the end, nothing matters anyway. The only consolation is being able to see at least a sliver of the universe, even though as soon as I die, that wont matter, and nobody and nothing will be changed by that fact.
ReplyDeleteNow, back to distracting my mind by attempting to understand a foreign language and failing miserably.
That's is not true, Bob. Every life matters. The impact you leave on this planet can be lasting beyond your own years. Take a look at scholars, artists and scientists. We still speak of them even though they are no longer living. They have made impacts on our lives today and will for many years to come. The notion that your life does not matter beyond your existence sounds quite selfish because it means you are only living for you right now. And if that is the case, then you are right. I implore you to do something bigger than yourself. Perhaps you will find more joy and value in life knowing that youdid something big in that short slice of time you were here.
DeleteThe only people that feel that "nothing matters" are the ones who only care about what other people think or remember of them. It's important to try to better the world, to better humanity (we certainly need it), and if you get remembered for that, good. But if the only reason things matter is through the lens of whether or not you'll be visible on a timeline, then you really should be rethinking things, because the reason *everything* matters is because everything you do affects at least one person - you. Very likely more. By affecting others, you're changing them. Everything you do matters.
DeleteI couldn't disagree with the first replier's notion of Bob's thoughts being selfish. Quite the opposite, I think this kind of feeling is the height of selflessness. In that same light, projecting that every life matters almost seems a bit selfish to me.. if not perhaps egotistical.
DeleteThink about what you just said, and the infograph. Everything we do matters because we're changing people, and he's being pessimistic because he doesn't feel he'll be remembered? Did you see the part of the infograph where THE UNIVERSE DIES? In the long run, your views on "The Human Condition" are just as arbitrary as his or mine, because eventually life is going to fizzle out. Our actions make no difference whatsoever in the grand scheme because there'll be no more grand scheme to contemplate.
DeleteBob, like you I have had insane days of contemplating this my self. Often followed by thoughts of suicide (sad but true). The fact is: That butterfly who changed the world thousands of years ago didn't know it, just like you're going to change the world and don't know it.
DeleteBeing completely transparent: I don't matter, you don't matter, no one here matters. Don't you see the paradigm shift there? We're all equal, which is the same as saying that everyone matters. So which is it bob? Is the the glass half full or is it half empty?
Bob, Given the enormity of space; the vast number of species on this planet; and the historical conditions and lack of conveniences in the past -- the odds of a given spark of life occurring such that it experiences air conditioning; electricity; readily available food; entertainment; freedom to choose one's own profession and mate; and so on --so astronomically slim -- that it is as if we have won a galactic lottery.
DeleteThere are no Vikings raping and pillaging in most places. We don't have to chop wood so our families won't freeze during the winter. We don't have 13 children --and only 5 or 6 them live to adulthood. Kings of old wore powdered wigs because they had fleas and lice to the extent that most of their hair fell out. We have Doppler radar (so we know when storms are coming). We understand germ theory.
WHY ISN'T WINNING THE LOTTERY ENOUGH?
Why is it difficult to appreciate the amazing gift of life on this planet - for what it is? Why aren't we all celebrating every moment just for the sheer improbability of being alive in this space and time?
Why do we feel we need more to be "significant"?
You could have been an amoeba...
DeleteStop picking on Bob
DeleteDude, don't agonize over the fact that you won't be Julius Caesar or Buddha. In fact, if given a choice, I would choose a small life because I DON'T want the weight of the world on my shoulders. We should enjoy and appreciate the time we have here because it may be all there is! Turn off your computer, learn guitar, go out with girls, write stories, play softball, go fishing...
DeleteI went to see a move at the theater last month. I bought my ticket, fully understanding that in 90 minutes, the movie would be over. I went to a party once. I knew the party wouldn't last forever. I still went. Why's stuff gotta last forever? Just enjoy the ride. Life won't give you a meaning. If you want meaning in your life you have to find one and bring it into your life.
DeleteHere's another thought. One life - my life, your life, anyone's life - may be insignificant to the world, to the universe, etcetera. But it can be the most significant thing in the world to another person. We simply can't be significant to all, it's too big a thing. But we can make a difference in someone else's life, and that difference is everything. Gandhi had it right: BE the change you wish to see in the world. You never know who will catch a dream from you.
DeleteNothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
DeleteNothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr
We also know that we are part of the historical continuum, so we should leave the place at least as good as we found it, and ready for the next person.
DeleteI find a lot of hope, and meaning, in that.
I don't know why that would keep you up at night. The fact is that nothing matters. Absolutely nothing.
DeleteWe are specs of nothing on a tiny blue ball, as Sagan put it, in a shaft of light in a wayward arm of a distant galaxy of billions of galaxies in an infinite universe. Our whole of existence has occurred on this nothing of a spec of rock and nothing that ever has or will happen here is of any relevance to the vastness of the universe.
Even on that little spec, absolutely nothing has long-term meaning.
In a few decades, we'll be dead and the only ones who remember us will be those that were alive and lived with us. A few decades after that and nobody will be alive to knew us to remember us. The offspring of those who knew us (grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc) might think of us twice in their life time, referring to some tale their parents once said about these people who are long dead and never met them.
In a century, almost no musicians, writers, actors, artists, or politicians alive today will be remembered. A few of them and a little bit of their work will be remembered and consumed and discussed by die hard enthusiasts and academics focused on those areas of interest.
In a couple hundred years, only a single digit percentage of anything from today will be remembered or discussed and most will have fallen into oblivion. Not just not part of common knowledge or interest, but literally wiped from existence. Only the most massive historical events or persons will be remembered.
In a thousand years, maybe Shakespeare and Hitler will be remembered and commonly known. Beyond that, it'll all become nothing. Nothing from today will mean anything more to anyone in a thousand years or so than any of us know or care about generally from the eighth or ninth century.
The worst villains who have evilly murdered millions will be lost to time and so will the greatest and most important and virtuous human beings. Normon Borlaug is known to have saved over a billion and counting with his agricultural advances and almost nobody knows him today. With time, nobody at all will and nothing he ever did will be of any consequence.
So think of everything you and I do. Or ever have done. Or ever will do. If the greatest events and people in all of existence mean nothing on this little planet, which means nothing in this vast universe, then what does anything we do? Any harm we do to others, crime we commit, life we save, good we do, love we express, years we add to our lives, books we read, great works we create, pain we inflict, pain we suffer, or massive fame we accumulate is absolutely and irrefutably irrelevant.
And this is powerful. What is the point of regretting for the rest of my life that stupid thing I did when I was a little kid or the bad relationship when I was a teen or the abortion we got when I was seventeen? What is the point of feeling grief that I won't be able to write the great novel or build a massive successful company or have sex with the most amazing woman ever? I can even go to the dentist and suffer awful dental pain and not give a damn, because it doesn't matter. It will hurt at the time, linger for a day or two, and be lost to the infinite time on either end of our current timeline.
Bob, I think I feel close to how you do about this. It's overwhelming to think that I was taught from the beginning of my life that I matter, that everyone matters, that my actions in life matter -- and they do to the extent that I will affect other people and things that I connect with while I'm here -- but as this infograph points out, in the end -- human kind will cease to exist, Earth will cease to exist, our galaxy, and this entire universe will, eventually, cease to exist.
DeleteIt's so scary and awe-inspiring that we are, for some reason, communicating and living now as humans, but one day it won't be so.
Depressing -- it'll be gone one day, so what does it matter? But here you are anyway.
It doesn't matter what happens after we die. What we do matters because it is happening right now. Who cares if what you do doesn't affect the universe in the long run? You have been given the freedom to do what you love the most! You don't need to be the savior of humanity or the universe to feel like your life is fulfilling, and you certainly don't have to be any of that.
DeleteIf Jesus rose from the dead, then maybe there is life after death?
DeleteMeaning and purpose then is to find out if that's true.
You got TVs for public consumption wrong. Many people don't consider the first TV home reception to have occurred until 1928 and even then it would be years after that tV became popular. You may have mistaken it with radio...
ReplyDeleteAmazing. That was what you took away from all of this. "You got TVs for public consumption wrong"......
DeleteExcuse me, but I seem to be missing my red stapler....I purchased it with my own money....and there seems to be a problem with my paycheck.....
I had the same exact thought, after going through this AMAZING infographic that someone obviously put many hours into. Some people just love to be critical.
DeleteLay off him, you jerks - he was just pointing out an obvious error that I immediately noticed as well.
DeleteAssuming the second timeline, at 11:59:59 several anonymous posters were complete dick bags.
DeleteThis little chain of comments has certainly helped alleviate my inner sense of doom and gloom... Thanks! :D
DeleteAlso 1833 date for telephone? Maybe telegraph?
DeleteBrilliant stuff...
ReplyDeleteLove the timeline graphs! I also like an asteroid being described as "dickish". Although I think calling them an ass might be more appropriate.
ReplyDeleteIt can be a powerful thing just to have a visual perspective rather than just knowing some numbers.
I wrote an app can show you graphs of your tasks with a graph similar to the ones above. You can use it for whatever time you want to track by just dragging cards in a program called Trello. You can find my app at reportsfortrello.com.
Thanks for making these graphs!!!
This post is really fantastic. Would it be alright if I use some of this for a project?
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, I love this infographic. It's great on so many philosophical levels.
Absolutely fine with people using these infographics for projects or anything else. Just give us a shoutout as the source!
DeleteThere is also another option. The universe will fall back onto itself and a new big bang will happen, just as the previous one could have happened as the end of a previous universe :)
ReplyDeleteBest current knowledge says that can't happen - the universe isn't dense enough. The WMAP measurements indicate that the universe is flat (about 0.4% margin of error), which implies that it's also infinite in size. Those measurements and observations of the most distant objects we can see seem to indicate that the *rate* of expansion is increasing, which would mean there's something with negative pressure pushing everything (presumably "dark matter"). If that's correct, then expansion will continue forever (an undefined scientific term of art :).
DeleteToo many people think of OUR universe as being THE universe. That's not necessarily the case. It's certainly possible that our universe is merely a one pixel-wide speck on the timeline of the universe, or of whatever "everything, ever" consists (or consisted, or will consist) of. For that matter, it's no certainty that time as we know it is in any way applicable to the universe in its totality.
DeleteI live with this awareness in my head all the time. It's a curse.
ReplyDeleteditto....its an amazing source of wonderment but can also be an unbelievable de-motivator. Eitherway...I think I'll use aeresol hairspray again....
DeleteTrue! However, at this moment all these atoms have come together and agreed to be me for awhile and allow the pleasures of family, friends, sunsets, etc.
DeleteI have had the good fortune to observe the shadow of the moon sweeping across the earth in the 1979 solar eclipse and live with the awareness of that visual of the speed with which I am spinning.
Perspective is a good thing.
Wow, the perspective this provides is quite humbling. At the same time I wholeheartedly appreciate the humor you've added, particularly the bit about the T-Rex and Justin Bieber. Hehehe.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you probably already know that the heat death of the universe is only one possibility, and it really all depends on the shape of the universe. I'd like to believe the alternate theory that it will eventually hit an end point of expansion and just collapse in on itself, starting another Big Bang. But my understanding of all that is less than rudimentary, relying on very simple explanations by very smart people :)
Nice illustration, but you don't understand evolution when you write that our digestive system evolved before we started breeding wheat - because with this you imply that our evolution stopped at some point. This is not the case. Those humans who could digest all kinds of stuff better than others (whether wheat or dairy) were more likely to survive and procreate than those who didn't. Easy as that. Evolution doesn't stop.
ReplyDeleteI think he means; evolved into the digestive system with which we are familiar today, in modern humans.
DeleteWe all know what he meant. Stop being picky.
My stomach is evolving right now. But that is of no consequence.
Hate to disagree, but your stomach is not evolving. The digestive system of humans may be evolving, but you are not.
DeleteYour stomach has a unique set of bacteria in it, that's created and molded by the things you eat. When you change your diet, that culture of bacteria that more or less exist to help you digest your food changes as well. That's one of the reasons a vegan if they try to eat a greasy burger after many years often gets stomach pains or wants to throw up. I believe I have also read that mothers often pass this down to their kids.
DeleteSo in a way, your stomach is in fact evolving
That's called adaptation.
DeleteWhat's on TV tonight?
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about releasing this as a single, high-quality, image? This is beyond incredible and I'd LOVE to print, frame and hang it.
ReplyDeleteHi Rick,
DeleteYes! That's coming. Check back in a few days.
Awesome! I want one!
DeleteMe too. How can I get one! brandylcd@hotmail.com
DeleteMaybe the universe will continue to expand into nothingness until all heat and energy die off and it realizes that it is, in fact, a single point singularity and the blown mind that ensues will be the next big bang.
ReplyDeleteHumans are not descended from apes but instead from a common ancestor shared with apes. And another thing: the "Heat Death" theory means that there will be no more free energy in the universe! This will be the effect of enthalpy in the extreme long run.
ReplyDelete**shared with other apes
DeleteMy bad! :S
what if we were to discover that there was more then one universe...much like we at some point discovered that there was more than one galaxy. And rather then a heat death, we absorb or get absorbed by another universe...maybe there are lots of them out there. I was just wondering if I'm the only one that thinks about that.
ReplyDeleteNo, you're not the only one.
Deletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
Delicious.
no, my first thought (besides the interpretive judgments regarding our "demise," which seems to confine it all to the physical realm, but in actuality seems to be a lot more mysterious and complicated than can be explained in such simplistic terms with simple, 2-dimensional, or even 3-dimensional, graphs & stuff) - although i can appreciate the humor - because there are still so many unanswered questions... string theory... dark matter... even metaphysical perspectives that are used to try to help explain certain unknowns or "unexplainables," etc... all (or maybe not all?) rooted in the physical world, and many hinting at possibilities of other inter-connected realms/universes - besides, i don't believe energy can really be "lost" into a sea of nothingness, i think it is simply transformed, is exchanged somehow, gets transposed elsewhere... whatever: to me it seems that anything that ends in vanishing is illusion (including your own sense of insignificance in the face of the macrocosm... we're all a part of this incredible creative energy source/s, and it is a part of us, too...) - thanks to all, fun to read this & participate
DeleteNo way you're the only one. :) I think the same way! It's fun, isn't it? <3
DeleteI don't see why it matters. I'll be dead in a few decades and since I won't exist, nobody that exists today will matter a damn to me. People that may or may not actually be alive in tens of billions or even trillions of years having to face the end of existence certainly don't even register on my give-a-damn-ometer.
DeleteMaybe humans will build their own sun and live forever.
ReplyDeleteThis would make the most awesome ChronoZoom tour ever. Go to http://www.chronozoom.com!!!
ReplyDeleteAwesome!
ReplyDeleteCould you please kindly add/change 2 things?
1. Remove the "fucked" word. You poster is absolutely great and I'd love to show it to children, but I obviously can't due to the above word...
2. Add the point were the World is believed to be created by God (like 6k years ago, right?) - Would be good to have it in perspective too.
Thanks!
Not everything has to be for children. Besides, you'd be better off teaching your children that there's no such thing as a bad word, just bad intention. Really, grow up, and help your children evolve instead of being trapped by silly things like "bad words." If it's that important to you, don't ask the artist to change his work. You censor it yourself.
DeleteAlso, leave God out of this. This is science, not fantasy.
I think her point is to demonstrate the difference between the scientific age of the universe and when Christianity says God created the universe. If anything, it just helps to demonstrate the stupidity of creationism.
DeleteI am glad God is not here. The issue with bringing God will be whose God? Allah, Jesus, Krishna, Shiva, Buddha whom you want? Every religion has it's own timeline and that would have taken away the neutrality and objectivity here.
DeleteIn this timeline, at least people agree on most of the events having taken place - if you grad in God - you would open a Pandora's box.
By the way, even God does not want to get dragged into this - which somehow most of we humans fail to understand.
Food for thought -
DeleteSome omnipotent power had to be there during that whole spectrum of what was illustrated above (outside of time) and will always be there. Think about how all this could have come about from "NOTHING" and how we seem to be the luckiest living organism (with all this 'limited' intelligence) that got everything 'perfectly' and 'accurately' aligned (ozone, oxygen, distance from sun, earth rotation, gravity, the complexity of an organism's biology etc to name a few) to be surviving on this spec of a place called earth. Now put THAT into perspective. You may then draw your own conclusions if 'something just appears out of nothing' and the existence of an omnipotent being.
More food for the thought -- the author points out that he doesn't understand the big bang, which is a sensibly humble position. The rest of us should try it sometime. To ask the question of whether "something can come from nothing" is rife with implicit, unfounded assumptions about the nature of time and space. And "nothing" is an extremely poorly defined word, that likely only represents a platonic concept in our brains, with little connection to the physical world. Positing the existence of a deity creates more problems than it solves -- the "who creates the creator" infinite regress. The only scientifically reasonable answer is "who knows; but I bet we'll figure out more as we observe more." Anything else is just hubris.
DeleteI would also suggest that to imagine that "everything had to align perfectly" for intelligent life to come into being, is to misunderstand the very sense of scale that this article conveys. It seems much more plausible to me that life would evolve in almost any medium with a few basic characteristics conducive to the formation of matter, given sufficient time -- and 15 or so billion years is a *long* time.
That came across a bit more harshly than I intended. More than anything, I just wanted to point out that the question is not as simple as implied, and that sometimes "I don't have enough information to judge" is the only reasonable answer.
DeleteSome estimates say the universe has around 50 sextillion (that's 5 with 22 zeros after it) "Earth-like" (possibly habitable) planets. This is obviously nothing short of a wild, but semi-educated guess. Those 50 sextillion possibly-habitable planets are but a fraction of all planets. Hell, they think there's around 100-200 billion planets in the Milky Way alone.
DeleteIs it so hard to believe that there's a 1/50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance that something went wrong on one planet, and over the course of the past 4,500,000,000 years, that something eventually grew into a bigger mess?
In 7 days, the leftovers in my fridge barely grow mold.
In other words, I'm putting the odds of a god coming out of nothing and creating the universe in 7 days and the odds of the conditions being juusssst perfect for life to start accidentally at around 49,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000:1 each.
And we get fucked anyway. How does that fit into your "perfectly aligned so an omnipotent being must have set it up just for us" scenario? We probably won't last until the fucked part anyway. And what was the omnipotent being doing for the first 9.2 billion years after the big bang but before the solar system formed? Hmm... I've drawn my conclusion. No omnipotent beings.
DeleteKeep in mind that the Big Bang produced mainly hydrogen (H), helium (He), and a little deuterium (D) -- hardly any of the heavier elements like carbon (C), nitrogen(N), phosphorus (P), etc. that are essential for life as we know it. The heavier elements had to be cooked up inside stars that processed the primordial H, D, and He. But those stars live for billions of years, and don't release their products back into the universe until they die. So you know it's going to take billions of years until you have enough stuff to make life, or for that matter, planets. Apparently it required several generations of stars, with younger stars forming from the debris of the older ones, to get the abundance of C, N, P, etc., that we need, and also the even heavier things like iron that make life more "interesting". The long time allowed the rate of supernova explosions to dwindle away, too, which is a good thing, since supernovas tend to sterilize their environments out to a large distance. So 9 billion years actually seems to be just about right. So Mr. Omnipotent Being just had to be patient, I guess. Maybe there's a faster way to do things, but none come to mind right now. :-)
DeleteThe only concept more frightening to me than death is immortality and eternity!
ReplyDeletenow i need to see some cute cats or something....
ReplyDeleteI am actually acutely aware of the magnitude of time and to be honest I was surprised that the presence of mammals on Earth is significant in the picture that represents the "Age of the Universe" (13.8 billion years).
ReplyDeleteNow if you want to be blown away by how large a number can get, I recommend looking up "Graham's Number" in Wikipedia.
Now what kind of nerd would I be if I didn't know about Graham's Number? I think about Graham's number basically every night in bed and get stressed out about it. And it's on my list of future nerd posts on Wait But Why. Stay tuned.
DeleteThe date for fire is much too late. 400,000 is a widely accepted date for the use of fire by H. Erectus, and there are a number of reports of evidence for earlier use, as much a 1 million years ago. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/20/E1215
ReplyDeleteI read a number of reports saying that the hideous H. Erectus had fire as far as 400,000 years ago. But also a number that said that theory as dubious and that widespread fire usage has no evidence before about 125,000 years ago. When in doubt I played it safe.
Deletewaitbutwhy is ripping off Carl Sagan's cosmic calender. Very poorly ripping him off I might add. Stick to your day job, waitbutwhy
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff. I have always thought on these lines but never went to such extent.
ReplyDeleteI would have preferred more balance recording of history though - the 5000 year old Indus Valley Civilisation should have been mentioned along with Ancient Egyptian one.
So the good people at Visual.ly (amazing site if you're not acquainted) and I will be working together to create a newer, shinier version of this.
ReplyDeleteWe'll do a version without saying the word "fucked" (even though that's what we are) too for people that want to use this with schools.
Check back about this soon!
When is the word "fuck" going to graduate into the big-leagues, where all the "real" words get to play? For a word that is so flexible, so expressive, it sure has to take a lot of abuse. I say we all stop picking on "fuck" and just recognize it for the valuable contributions it has made to human communication. And to those who continue to harass it, to try to hide it, and pretend it doesn't exist, I say: Joke'em if they can't take a fuck!
DeleteTeachers thank you. Administrators would come down hard on a teacher who dared show a graph with the work "fucked."
DeleteYou get confused by time before big band and time in future because you are viewing time as linear. It is quite possible that time is circular. Just a food for thought. I believe in that.
ReplyDeleteBelieve in Christ the eternal God and His indestructible revealed Written Word instead. You will be much better off.
DeleteChrist isn't and was never a god. Christ was a person, born by the will of God. If you try to convert people, at least get it right.
DeleteNo. Not according to the Bible. Not even close. You are misunderstanding the Trinity.
Delete"Arp? Toot! Blip! Ding ding! arROOBaaah!"
DeleteSuperbly illuminating and funny. But too west-focussed in its depiction of recorded human history.
ReplyDeleteTo quote the one man who had the deepest, broadest, most comprehensive understanding of all this: "All reality is an illusion. But it is a persistent illusion."
ReplyDeleteThe whole graph is insignificant when compared to eternal life for all who will believe in Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God the Father of us all, and ask Him into your heart. Hard to believe? Just ask Him to show you if He is real. Then comment.
ReplyDeleteI asked but he said 'no'. So I went back to believing in science instead.
DeleteCheryl, I did precisely that and Ram said, all religions are same - different people interpret it differently and call it differntly. In the process they also found it convenient to call me by different name.
DeleteI hope you are ok with above.
I beg to differ. Odin is the Allfather; Christian mythology is just ridiculous. If you doubt me, just ask Christ who nailed him to the cross - it was Thor using his mighty hammer, Mjölnir.
DeleteExcuse me, but Zeus is the fucking tits. None smite the unworthy as he. If you don't like it, feel free to ride the Styx down to Hades.
DeleteAll y'alls Gods™ aint got nothin' on Cthulhu.
DeleteThis is the saddest thing. Living life vicariously through an abusive system - why do these folks even both with an item such as this. It's madness.
DeleteThank you for sharing this secret. I just asked Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God the Father of us all into my heart. Now, is that going to interfere with my blood pressure or arteries in any way?
DeleteINCONCEIVABLE!
ReplyDeleteI don't think that word means what you think it means...
DeleteI think it's quoting the little bald guy in the princess bride?
DeleteSo's the second guy, for the love of Pete. Did you *watch* the movie?
DeleteLoved this. Will the poster version more accurately portray (to scale) the length of Obama's presidency?
ReplyDeletethings i enjoy about "analysis.." it's all inaccurate.
ReplyDeleteTo be pedantic, not only is Obama's presidency out of scale, but the 21st century began not in 2000, but in 2001, so Bush's presidency should reach almost completely to the left.
ReplyDeleteYou are depressed by living with the past. You are anxious by living with the future. But we need to have both depression and anxiety, but that should not make you to live with fear.
ReplyDeleteMaintain the balance and peace in you that means you are living with the present. Humans should understand the science with clarity and art with reality for humanity. Be gentle with nature because that is the temple and you are the shrine. ~ Ramen @ Athma-Pure
This actually mean we do matter and a lot ... all those things, those million of little twists and turns in history that had to go wrong or right at just the right time, happened with us as a result. With the good and the bad that we know (though I would go for more bad than good as we lose our humanity as time goes by).
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonder, a miracle (if I would be a believer of any imaginary fatherfigure watching over us) that we're here today ... sharing thoughts across this planet that is at once so small and so large depending on which way you view it from.
We should be taking care of the only thing that matters: us ... instead of merrily massacring and destroying whatever we put our hands on. Each and every one of us has not only the chance to be here, alive and thinking, but also the chance to be able to grasp the chart above and understand what it means, even if the figures are so astronomical and beyond everyday use.
Whether we screw it up or not lies entirely in our hands for once (asteroids, aliens and other cataclysms excluded of course) where in those billios of years before us we underwent the change we can now, in part, steer it ourselves. How amazing is that?
Unfortunately, even more amazing, is that we use to no great purpose at all except for a few people who try to push that little gray mass of cells inside our skull to try and see beyond tomorrow, next year, the next decennia.
We're so darn lucky to know and so unlucky to not give a flying hoot!
Heat death can be explained.
ReplyDeleteEvery thermodynamic "event" (speaking physics), such as the friction that occurs when two surfaces rub one another (creating a force), the flowing of air (from one pressure level to another), heat exchange (such as a melting ice cube, or cooling the surrounding air)... all causes some "potential energy" to be lost. For example, see this "potential energy" as the work you can do by popping or deflating a balloon: pressurized air inside can be used to make the balloon fly, or create a loud bang. When that event ends, the air that used to be in the balloon is mixed with the outside air and is now all of equal pressure. The energy that used to be in the balloon, has been 'used up'. This energy cannot be regained, unless you re-inflate the balloon - but this will cost MORE energy than you will get out of it (due to friction and stuff).
This "potential energy" can be more strictly defined as the amount of "orderliness" versus "chaos" at the molecular level. This is what physicists call "enthropy". Everything that is orderly will naturally move towards a situation where chaos is maximised.
If you have an empty space, and you put a large number of molecules inside it, they will spread out until they are evenly spread out in that space ('equal pressure'). This is maximised "chaos": if it were your bedroom, your stuff would be chaotically spread out all over. Compare this to a situation in which all of the molecules would be placed in one tiny corner of the space, with vacuum in the rest of the space. This is a very "orderly" situation: all molecules are stacked up in one place, nothing around it. It would be a very neatly organised bedroom indeed. But those molecules will start moving, and they will quickly start spreading out - because they're stacked in one place, while they tend to move towards maximised chaos (in this instance, equal pressure). Energy is produced through the spreading out across the room - similarly, it would take a lot of energy to force all molecules into the corner to start with.
All these processes end up with a more "chaotic" nett final state. Some potential energy will have been used up.
Heat death occurs when THE UNIVERSE as a whole has reached equilibrium, or maximised chaos. The entire universe will be a cloud of molecules, all evenly distributed, same temperature, same pressure. There will be no 'wind' because there is no reason for the stuff to move anywhere else. Water on earth flows downwards because that expends its potential energy (which it got through gravity), producing a more chaotic state. But if there's just a mass of stuff of equal pressure, there's no potential energy in that stuff for anything to flow anywhere.
To summarize it in one big analogy: when you pour milk into a cup of coffee and stirr, it will start out looking quite neat and vivid with moving blobs, lines, swirls, etcetera. But it will slowly become more and more mixed, and eventually, all will be completely mixed into one optimally chaotic cup of coffee. It will cool down until it's the same temperature as the air around it, and then the coffee won't even move around any more. There will never again form a white milky line in there, if left alone. Nothing will happen.
That's our universe when it reaches heat death. The black-white boundaries and swirls that you can see in the coffee, that's every event that occurs in the universe. When it's mixed and temperature stops changing, that's heat death. Nothing else will ever happen in that universe, unless interfeared with from outside of it. No interaction is possible inside it, no life, no explosions, nothing. Just boring equilibrium forever.
That's heat death.
Thanks for this explanation. And although it makes sense, isn't it still true to say that gravity, one of the weakest forces also has one of the greatest ranges? If this is so and would were to consider the shape of the expanded heat death universe and a very very large sphere-ish shape* with scattered cold matter throughout it, wouldn't it still have an average centre of gravity (just like any structure or formation)? And if so, over a very, very, very long time, wouldn't that tiny force coax matter towards it, ie back towards the average centre?
DeleteI guess the bit I don't understand about 'heat death frozen equilibrium state forever' is how do you dispense with the notion of an average centre of gravity for all mass distributed across the entire universe? Because if you don't, even the slightest gravitational misalignment is an unbalanced force. An unbalanced force will lead to acceleration.
*So about the shape of the universe. If it has originated from a single point then rather than a sphere logically it would be more akin to a hollow spherical 'shell' with an outer and inner boundary between which all the matter is moving outward. The thickness of this shell I suppose is somewhat defined by the length of time the big bang was emitting matter. Anyway.. ;)
Thermodynamics is the study of statistics. There is a reason that molecules cramped in a corner tend to spread out: they're moving, en masse, in so many directions we can only look at the big picture and say they're moving "at random". Statistically speaking, they will bump into each other more frequently on the "higher pressure" (inside, more densely populated) part of the molecule blob, and less or not at all on the vacuum that surrounds them. Thus a growing number of particles will statistically speaking be moving towards the vacuum, in effect "spreading out". This will continue until the particles are statistically speaking "evenly spread out", at which point they will still continuously collide, but there won't be statistical changes in pressure any more. Each particle collides randomly just as statistically often as the particles around it.
DeleteSo when I say "equilibrium", even in the context of heat death, that does not mean that nothing moves. Lots of stuff moves. Everything moves. All molecules will still be moving, bouncing around, bumping into each other. But on the larger scale, statistically speaking, they will bump into each other equally often on all sides. So there will be no macroscopic "movement" within the "cloud" of molecules (or atoms, or whatever).
Now of course, all mass causes a gravitational force on all other mass in the universe. And if we're speaking of one cloud of mass in thermodynamic equilibrium, then that cloud - considered as one whole - will have a center of gravity. Mass will be slowly pulled together into one cloud, the particles in it will bump and bounce around. Gravity will pull the outer particles towards the center, causing a slight (statistical) "inwards pressure" from the outside edge of the cloud. Inside the cloud itself, statistically speaking, there will be a few more collisions (because there's matter on all sides, as opposed to near the edge of the cloud). That pressure resists the outer particles from actually coming in. All in all, as many particles will get bounced into the center, as there are particles that are bounced out of it. It's a statistic equilibrium.
So you're right about forces causes accelleration, but the thing to understand is that heat death is a *thermodynamical* and *statistical* concept. You fundamentally cannot wholly understand or explain thermodynamical interactions by looking at individual particles, on which forces are excerted, which collide, and accelerate. The thing is that the cloud is very much moving constantly, but the movement is so equalized throughout the cloud that there are no more imbalances of any kind. No density imbalance, no pressure imbalance, no temperature imbalance... It's all in equilibrium. So statistically speaking, save for the constant movement of all (tiny) individual particles, nothing happens any more. Life is not possible because it requires thermodynamic processes, and nothing occurs at that scale any more in the situation of heat death. There's just tiny collisions of tiny particles in one big cloud that doesn't move, there's no "weather" in it, nothing.
About the big bang: not everything may have jetted out at the same speed, making your geometry claims not necessarily correct (but either position would be highly speculative), and 85% of the matter in our universe is either missing, invisible or unknown to us (dark matter). I try not to say or claim too much about the big bang or the structure of the universe, because I think we basically don't really know quite enough to be making such claims. Nice to think that everything came from nothing at a point when time wasn't even formed yet, but why that would have happened and why that something couldn't happen again are questions that aren't answered.
Re: Gravity pulling everything back together: If there is anything left to pull back together that can be, than that isn't heat death yet. When they bump into each other and stop moving, that's heat death. If there's too much of that stuff, it goes into a black hole, which will eventually radiate away as hawking radiation - that radiation can never pull itself back together because under normal circumstances gravity can barely bend the path a bit.
DeletePlus, there's not just gravity out there. There's dark energy - a force that pushes the universe farther and father apart. An isolated photon will never ever find anything else to hit and is effectively time-dead. (Dark energy will create an event horizon that keeps gravity from ever reaching that time-dead particle.)
And, look up: Big Rip.
You don't consider the moon landing important enough to mention? The first time *any* life form from Earth walked around on another solar system body? The first step on our way out of sun-expanding doom?
ReplyDeleteThat is why I intend on becoming a god and leaving this universe. Adios, motherfuckers!
ReplyDeleteFantastic infograph! Unfortunately, the take away from this is a feeling of waste. Why? This graph clearly demonstrates that time is not a renewable resources - it depletes - a fact that reinforces the old wisdom that what we need to make the most of time. Yet the graphs shows that however great our achievements in space of time will vanish with time. So why worry in life? Perhaps we should just have to eat and sleep away and varnish with time someday! No waking to run to the office or working late to meet the target date for that report. yepeee!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis graphic is bogus after is passed Written History at 3,500 BC. How in the world do they know what happened before then? Sillies. Read your Bible and you will see the true history is in Genesis. Stop believing non-believing atheistic scientists. Instead, believe the Written Word of God and the believing scientists who believe His Word.
ReplyDeleteDerp. Derp derp? Derp.
DeleteGo go post on a myth-, er, theology website, not a science website please.
eFUSION, need I point out the obvious flaw in your logic? You believe Adam and Eve lived around 4,000 BC. Thus, by your argument and words, Genesis is "sillies" and unknowable.
DeleteYou mean Genesis isn't silly? ... LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
DeleteA thought - sure, earth-based life is limited to about another 800 million years or so - but just from this chart - the Universe itself could foster life for about another 100 trillion years or so (presuming 100 trillion years to when Star Formation ends, and that even then you'd have new stars that just formed).
ReplyDeleteSo if we're at about 20, 21 billion years from the Big Bang to the end of the earth - that cycle could repeat 50 times in a trillion years, or 5000 times in a hundred trillion years.
Plenty of time for humanity to colonize other worlds and hop around from star to star.
Anyway, instead of ended it at the 'Well, we're fucked' point - you could show a range for 'life is possible in the Universe', which, granted, would show our current time is a very small slice. But it would also show that there is a ton of time left yet for almost endless solar systems to be created, and for life to evolve.
hopefully I'mm wrong. But the way we are carrying on. The future for our selves ain't that long. Gosh we are brilliant and horrendously at the same time.
ReplyDeleteActually really hilarious post as well as fascinating. My two funniest moments both involved Pangaea:
ReplyDelete1) Pangaea described as the continents "cuddling"
2) Pangaea quoted as saying, "I had a good run"
Great job!
It took all that time to produce human beings who could know so much about all that had gone before, and then contemplate and reflect on it. If that doesn't make you feel significant, then you're looking at it wrong. The universe bent over backward creating you, your brilliance, your flaws, your silliness, your greatness, your odd smell, your orgasms, your pain, your addictions, and your love. It's not THAT you are that matters--it's WHO you are.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't achieve orgasms :(
DeleteThen try to focus on what you've been given. Like that cheesy smell that everyone but you knows about. Do you bathe? Seriously.
DeleteHey, it's not my fault I'm allergic to cleanliness!
DeleteI want to agree with you, philosophically, that we are not the rubbish some people portray us as, that intelligence is remarkable and may be "the whole point" of Earth life, to get to this point, for Earth (maybe seen as a Gaia) to expand it's genetic heritage outward. But, I am not so sure that life is as exceptional as you imply. What if life is a normal process in the universe? We only feel alone because it's a big universe and we've only been technological for one century--a minuscule amount of time. What if there are millions of homeworlds like ours in this galaxy alone? I'll let Star Trek take it from there...
DeleteThis is COOL. I want it in a booklet that I can keep on the shelf and pull down when I need it as reference!
ReplyDeleteOn 9/13, comments were fantastic, written by intelligent, engaged people with a firm grasp of their - our - place in time, whether gloomy because of the farthest future, or happy because of the wonders that exist here and now. I loved the 9/13 comments.
ReplyDeleteOn 9/14, the Christians discovered this page, and the stupid, closed-minded arguments began.
I agree. I wonder how Christian zealots are able to drag Christianity into everything. I wonder why these misguided and heavily funded people cannot live without converting others!
DeleteHahaha, let's take a stab at God-fearing Christians and say they are "stupid" and "close-minded". LOL. So original.
DeleteThose idiots believing in a Creator. What silly people.
Instead, let's believe in some sinful humans.
Oh wait, what is this Scripture... "The fear of the LORD is the BEGINNING of knowledge." (Proverbs 1:7).
There is another Scripture that says fools are those that don't believe in God.
Take your pick. Maybe you are the stupid, close-minded one. Could be, kind sir.
God reigns supreme.
The first two comments September 14, 2013 at 2:30 AM and again a couple of hours later were insulting creationism and Christianity.
DeleteIt's funny how people bow in the awesomeness of a scientific chart that says we knew nothing before 3,500 years ago and then goes on to explain everything that happened before then in great detail.
But of course, you know, religious people are stupid and unscientific.
I can imagine a universe with a God. I can imagine one without any deity. Can a Christian? If you cannot, then you are incapable of having an intelligent conversation with someone with a different opinion, and are therefore incapable of communication beyond your intellectual borders. Food for thought. Is it possible to write an argument in favor of your beliefs without quoting from your beliefs? Are you capable of imagining how others feel when you exclude them from your idea of heaven? What is that point of view called, sociologically? To illustrate, how would you feel about a political party that behaved that way. What do you call a party that has no room for any other opinion or view? It's called Fascism. Even if you're right, as you believe, you have no right to tell others that they are wrong. To do so is to hate Jesus Christ who commands you to love one another.
DeleteI have no problem with disrespecting and being abusive to christians - ask Bruno - ask those they burned 'alive' inc Bruno (of course)
DeleteJust my little palaeo nerd comment here, but the Australian animals thing is kind of wrong; Australia was still part of Gondwana for a long time, and thus connected to Africa, South America, India and Antarctica right through most of the Mesozoic; our animals didn't start getting weird until we broke off from Antarctica around 40 million years ago. There are fossil platypuses from South America from the Cretaceous, which is well after the 200 million year figure given.
ReplyDelete@eFUSION, you write, "How in the world do they know what happened before then?"
ReplyDeleteIt's called forensics. It's how detectives figure out how the crime occurred and who is at fault. You trust *them* to use scientific methods and seek the truth, right? And you trust the result, right? Then trust the scientists, who use similar methods to arrive at their conclusions.
Lemme tell ya about Lord Rutherford, a physics professor. Now, silver-iodide-brushed plates of glass were used for photos before film. Rutherford had a stack of these, wrapped in black cloth, on his desk waiting to be used. On top of the stack was a piece of pitchblende, a uranium ore.
When he'd taken a photo and developed the top plate, he saw an image of the bottom of the piece of pitchblende. He soon realized that some kind of powerful light-like energy was coming out of the rock in order to produce its image on the plate, and that the energy was stronger than light. So strong, in fact, that it shot through the lightproof black cloth that had wrapped the plates.
He called the phenomenon 'radioactivity.' He then thought about it and realized that something must be causing the radioactivity: the breakdown of the uranium atoms in the rock, into lead and helium. He realized that a certain percentage of the uranium must have been producing helium for all the years that the rock existed, probably at the same rate.
So he cracked open the rock, in order to find out how great a percentage of the rock was helium, and deduced its age.
A few days later, Rutherford walked up to a geology professor and asked him how old the earth is. The geology prof hedged that, while they really couldn't say for sure, current thought (in the 1890s) was that it was between one and two million years of age.
Rutherford dropped the pitchblende into the geologist's hand and assured him, "I *know* that this bit of pitchblende is seven hundred million years old."
Now contrast Rutherford's research with some deep thoughts by Augustine, one of the greatest of the Christian philosophers, on a subject for which he had done absolutely no research: the other side of the Earth.
"As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets on us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, there is no reason for believing it. Those who affirm it do not claim to possess any actual information; they merely conjecture that, since the earth is suspended within the concavity of the heavens, and there is as much room on the one side of it as on the other, therefore the part which is beneath cannot be void of human inhabitants. They fail to notice that, even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round or spherical in form, it does not follow that the part of the earth opposite to us is not completely covered with water, or that any conjectured dry land there should be inhabited by men. For Scripture, which confirms the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, teaches not falsehood; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have set sail from this side and, traversing the immense expanse of ocean, have propagated there a race of human beings descended from that one first man."
There was a basic difference between Rutherford and Augustine. Where Rutherford researched in the here and now, Augustine made assumptions based on an ancient book.
Next time someone quotes Saint Augustine to you, remember that he didn't think it was possible for Australians to exist!
Yeah Stan, I'm not talking about Augustine. You want to take faith in Mr. fallible-human Rutherford, but I will take faith in the revealed Word of the Almighty Creator God who was there at the beginning. Science and His word do not contradict. But us feeble humans do mess up interpreting the evidence quite often.
DeleteWait... what? You mean we can't believe a chart that says we knew nothing beyond 5,500 years ago and then explains everything that happened beyond 5,500 years ago?
DeleteYou mean this isn't a good, solid reason to put our faith in science and make fun of the world's oldest religion with 1 billion followers?
lol @ oldest, there are plenty of religions that are older than Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism for example are older.
DeleteZoroastrianism...Pre-catholic Romans, Greeks, ancient Egypt, Druids.....and that's just off the top of my head. And all of them are equally as valid as your Christianity. The fact that you are a christian speaks more to where and when you were born than to the truth of a particular religion.
DeleteInteresting comments on this post. Two thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) Thanks for pointing out little errors or things that weren't clear—will do a fix of those things soon.
2) As for the "this makes me feel insignificant" concept, I think what reflecting on all this does for me is A) makes me treasure my unlikely little moment of insignificance existence and feel grateful to be alive, and B) makes me not want to sweat the small stuff at ALL. It also makes petty human emotions like hate and greed and envy seem VERY silly.
Thanks for your research but F U i dont believe in shit i believe in GOD :P
ReplyDeleteIn other words, you believe in shit.
DeleteThoroughly impressed with the length and detail of these posts. How long did this one take you mate?
ReplyDeleteSam
WOW! Nuthin else to say
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that many like me see in this fine presentation (Thanks!) how it took this "long" for Cosmos to "evolve" a sentient being capable of putting this chart together. As if we, as microcosms, are now given the opportunity to begin to understand the Vastness of That which brought us to this point.
ReplyDeleteIn these last moments of the 12:59:59 type models, how cool that our self-reflectivity can take another ratchet turn within by gazing upon the fabric of our own consciousness, with the Advent of the entheogenic Sacrament. The birth of Acid should be on the timeline!
The Christian is right to feel a connection to an awesome divinity. The Science wonk is right to feel amazement and humble awe before the Great Thread of Time and Expression.
The Skeptic gets left out of the best parts of Cosmos: feeling connected and unafraid to be reabsorbed back into the Ocean.
Turn on, dive in, and find your true Self in the Great Mind that expresses Itself through you! It's only a step or two from ape to silly religionists or silly scientists. This rift can be healed. There's much more for us to discover in Consciousness.
Do Good, help others, resist crazy greedy mofos, and enjoy the fucking ride!
Everyone knows that television started in 1936 a British invention of course
ReplyDeleteNothing happened before the big bang. The big bang created time and space, and nothing can "happen" before there's such a thing as time. It's like asking who was winning the race before the starting gun went off.
ReplyDeleteSorry folks, but getting of the defeatist materialist, separated view of everything does NOT require religion over science. Time is not what you think.
ReplyDeleteQuantum physics (most proven and used theory ever) includes the observer.
How many of them? Bad question. There is only one. And it is us,
and, if you don't mind using the terminology, an infinitesimal but holographic-like portion of that One, G-d. (Source: physicists John Wheeler and Erwin Shrodinger, Jewish Chassidic and Kabbalist the AriZal, Rabbi Isaac Halevi Luria.
Accept it, friends, we are all the same guy! And our "spirit" has a part outside of time.
Brilliant. I loved the commentary throughout the graph as well. Made me laugh out loud! I loved reading everyone's comments afterward as to how studying the graph made them feel. (i.e., significant vs. insignificant). I would like to add my two cents to this by offering a very simple analogy... a grain of sand. Yes, we are but a grain of sand. But put millions and billions of grains of sand together and what do you have? A beautiful beach. Likewise, the energy that one human being has unites with the energies of others in order to CREATE! To LOVE! To propel each other forward along this time continuum which will surely morph into some brave new world, I am certain.
ReplyDeleteLoved everything about this.
ReplyDeleteOf course some trolls showed up, but have been smoothly despatched by the wit and wisdom of the rest.
Religion is, by definition, faith based.
DeleteScience is, by definition, fact based.
One has no bearing on the other. Neither can be used to "prove" or "disprove" anything about the other.
They both exist, and can exist quite well together. However, small minds on both sides will, probably out of insecurity, try to attack, or somehow undermine the "other side". But to believe that there are "sides" is fundamentally misunderstanding them both.
This timeline is a wonderful thing. Thank you for creating and posting it.
Discussions like this are exciting, provocative things that fill my mind with questions and my heart with joy.
Yes, they're equal and proof is irrelevant. We can get along. Or at least, that's how we have to act until 9/10 of the population becomes atheist. Then we can start being honest and insisting on therapy and medication for the nutters if they want to keep living in normal free society, like we do now with people who are schizophrenic. I'd give it 200 years.
DeleteIt doesn't take insecurity to attack the other side just a loss of patience. I, for one, am tired of religious dogma and the excuses for greed, killing, etc., It's not good enough - sorry folks - but it isn't ... I wrote a lot more then deleted it as I'm wasting what little time I've got left on .... other folks
DeleteIt's hard to believe that we were created by some higher being. It's also hard to believe that we just evolved from monkeys.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to choose which is crazier, it would have to be the monkey theory.
My sentiments exactly.
DeleteBased on the commentary, why are people that believe in God or an omnipotent being foolish or stupid or believing in fantasy?
Doesn’t the chart clearly state that 3,500 BC marks the beginning of us knowing anything about history?
It then lists everything that happened in pretty good detail for the previous billions of years. Further it lists when man controlled fire, 125,000 years ago. ( I'd like to see the proof of that - go ahead bring the evidence, I'll put my boots on.) Then of course when we started harvesting wheat (Again I'll put my boots on for that evidence.) But God is fantasy, religious people are ignorant, and all of this came from a nothing that suddenly exploded for no apparent reason into the entire universe. This is all because of our extremely accurate fossil record, which despite the over 25 million categorized fossils has yet to produce a single missing link besides a weird peach fuzz bird thing. I think with such quality evidence, we should make fun of God and religious people some more. Oh yeah, did I mention the part about the chart mentioning not knowing anything beyond 3500 years ago, and the whole belief that nothing exploding into everything? Sorry, but I'll stick with the belief in an omnipotent being.
Adam and Eve must be completely fabricated too, then, because they supposedly lived 4,000 BC. Obviously there are bigger problems here than just logic and reason.
DeleteFire: #1 http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/archaeology/Publications/Hearths/Hominid%20Use%20of%20Fire%20in%20the%20Lower%20and%20Middle%20Pleistocene.pdf #2 http://news.sciencemag.org/2012/04/quest-fire-began-earlier-thought?ref=em (there's many more, it doesn't take much to find)
DeleteWheat: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/288/5471/1602
You can take your boots off now. Now where is the evidence that your god exists? Why not the Buddhist, Greek, or Egyptian gods? Your belief in your god (and non-belief of all others) says more about the time and place where you were born, than whether any particular religion is valid.
Also, your "missing link" has been demonstrated over and over, you just keep looking for missing links in between every fossil that is found. You worship the God of the Gaps.
To all the people saying that the graphic says "we know nothing about what went on before 3500 bc," that's not what it says. It says that 3500 bc marks the beginning of us knowing what went on in history, and it's clear that it's implying HUMAN history. Of course we know a lot about what went on in natural history before writing. Geology is an entire field of science and the last 5,000 years is about .0001 percent of what that science covers. Scientists KNOW that the Earth is billions of years old as much as they KNOW why it rains and how a volcano works and what the boiling point of water is.
ReplyDeleteIt's perfectly fair to believe in an omnipotent being, but not at the expense of proven facts. Wise religious scholars know that science and religion don't need to conflict. And wise religious scholars typically accept evolution as fact. That doesn't make them any less religious—it just means they're being more sophisticated than believing that the Bible, which was written by men, holds the truth about god. They believe in god as fully as anyone else, but they don't reject blatant scientific fact in doing so.
This is a SPECTACULAR infographic and believers, agnostics, and atheists should all be discussing the fascinating walk through history the graphic takes us on. That's it. If you want to discuss the graphic and everything within, this is a perfect forum to do so. If you want to come to a blog that clearly believes in the science of evolution and spout out comments about how science is bullshit, all you're doing is provoking and taking the conversation off subject. It's no better than an atheist finding a forum about the Bible and commenting about how he's sure it's written by men—that would be obnoxious, and so is coming here to deny science.
Now can we please get back to the mind-blowing facts about the vastness of human and natural history presented on this great blog post?
Slow clap ^
DeleteYeah my thoughts exactly. The existence of god is not the topic and no one should be attacking anyone else on either side about that on this particular forum.
DeleteInstead, can someone please better explain what a singularity is and how time can "start" at the Big Bang and why I'm sorely misunderstanding physics when I continue to think, "but what was happening.....before....the Big Bang?"
Time is change, right? If at the smallest divisible instant directly before planck time (basically a term meaning "impossible for us to measure a smaller instant because of the laws of physics") there was no movement at all, just one big solid block of energy, then that was by definition the first moment. There was no time before that. In fact, if you were to pretend that there is time before it and could explore it from an omnipresent view, it would still be that same perfectly solid unchanging block of infinitely compressed energy no matter how far "back" you go.
DeleteNo change, no time. The start of the universe. No before. Plus, almost no space at all for it to happen in.
I like this a lot and I would love to show something like it to my 6th grade science class but there is a certain amount of not-appropriate-for-middle-school language that would get me in trouble if I used it as-is. Do you have a more kid-friendly version of this presentation?
ReplyDeleteCopy/paste and edit as 'the creator' suggested to another comment - goodness me, there's another below - can't folks do anything for themselves - or is there another agenda here - regarding which I speculated on my fb page about an hour ago
DeleteCan you take the "we're fucked" part off so I can show it to my students? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteLots of people are asking about a PC version, and others are asking about a single, high-quality image version. Both are coming soon- check back in a week!
ReplyDeleteThank you WBW person. The future will thank you for sharing your "vision" with them. I don't know how the future "thanks" someone. A memorial probably somewhere.
DeleteVery interesting although factually incorrect.
ReplyDeleteI am not interested in any ones comment that has the need to use inappropriate language. If they are not literate enough to express themselves with good English, they ain't got nothing to say that I would be interested in.
ReplyDelete"...they ain't got nothing..." Please, tell me you're being sarcastic.
ReplyDeleteI missed the "any ones" the first time around, too. How many 1's??? Any 1's.
DeleteThis is a terrific infographic! Thanks for putting in the effort!
With all due respect (and I enjoyed every bit of this) please, before you make this available for teachers...remove the word Fucked so they can share the article with their students. Thanks! It was great to read. :)
ReplyDeleteFortunately most people who read this wont really grasp the significance of it, or should i say the insignificance of life. were people to grasp this concept en masse it could spark anarchy as nothing would really matter. However, it is lucky that most people still believe there is a point to life and that it should be nurtured and protected for the short time it exists. We all deserve to have our slice of time on this planet, however short or insignificant it may be.
ReplyDeleteBro, back in my day we wouldn't let just anyone be a jockey. You had to come from a very wealthy background and your father's father had to be the best jockey of his time for you to even be considered.
ReplyDeleteFirst human migrated to America? You should learn some history before posting anything.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great thing, I hate to be a little selfish about two things though.
ReplyDelete1) You have Jesus and Mohammad, but you missed at least Abraham, and maybe at least the founding of Jerusalem, without Abraham, there would not have been a Jesus or Mohammad.
2) I'd love to have a Canadian version of this to use here in Canada.
This was a great read! Nice work!
1)I think that it would be better to leave off any religious time frames as those are not important to civilization. They are just negative human distractions that have lead to violence.
Delete2)Basketball was invented in Canada but it would be good to throw in some Hockey stuff too.
Agreed. I would remove all reference to any religious or quasi-religious event - because of the idiocy this arouses. As a Brit I smiled (!) at the Americanism of it but accepted that the creator is American (lol) and if I wanted anything different I should make one of my own - which, I note, answers a few such comments here.
DeleteAnd I feel fairly sure the Canadian person was alluding to the same of thing, hence the irony of 2). Also I was almost moved to check such stuff as tv invention (which is NOT what is put on the graph) but what for - it's not the point of the thing to nit-pick nationalism, religion its to do with Time Perspective - the clue's in the title.
I suppose all of the rainbow colours during the confusing era before the big bang has something to do with gay gases?
ReplyDelete...and where does "god" fit into all of this exactly. Was god the rainbow?
The meaning of life part 1:
ReplyDelete1st of all, if Gold and Lead were formed in the middle of stars, and the Sun, its life is estimated to be about 10 billion (1010) years, and stars about 0.25 times the mass of the Sun to last for about one trillion (1012) years according to stellar evolution calculations, while the least-massive hydrogen-fusing stars (0.08 solar masses) will last for about 12 trillion years, Then the Universe is likely over a Trillion years old. Must be something missing in their equation.
What if Creation?
Pre-Big Bang: Imagine all the people, sorry. Imagine all of the energy in the universe inhabited by souls. They could imagine anything and everything, yet nothing was real and they already knew everything. As a collective, they came together for one moment and create all of the matter in the universe from energy.
Ever since the big bang, they have inhabited all live across the Universe and all energy. Imagine what it would feel like to be part of a star? To experience every life form in the Universe, plants and animals of every kind, to be able to learn and live without knowing everything (real life). Imagine that these soles have an infinite memory bank and record all life memories across space and throughout time. Imagine if souls/life forces, were not bound by time, on the outside looking in, and could be anywhere throughout the Universe at the same time (time travel outside of the body).
Human Life: Everyone must find a reason for living before they can actively start living. A foundation for them to build their life around (religion, science, etc.). Imagine if a souls/energy took ownership of a body(s) and guided them through life, living, making mistakes, and learning. Imagine if souls had all of the knowledge in the Universe and that love is the greatest knowledge. Imagine if one lost control of a body and it did terrible things.
After life: looking back on one’s life with the ultimate knowledge of the universe. Are you proud of what you learned, of the difficulties you overcame, of the things you created, and the good you did? Are you ashamed or horrified by the things you did, did you hurt the ones you love? What are you going to do about it, in your next life?
As energy/mass cannot be destroyed, one the process of the Universe has completed, it will likely start over again.
This series of timelines was just great! Your explanations quite witty and wonderful.
ReplyDeleteMinor quibble: Television wasn't really commercialized until around 1947-48, although it may have been technically possible as you show it in the 1920s. Anyway, the commercialization of TV in the late 1940s was instrumental in shaping the modern era... insofar as that matters!
You forgot to include the 17 major event-times when aliens arrived and interacted with the planet and the life forms on it.
ReplyDeleteHeh.
I watched an episode of "The Universe" called 'Cosmic Apocalypse' (S2 E18), and it described stars burning out for good and the universe being nothing but black holes. It was actually quite depressing.
ReplyDeleteAs a geologist, I am as well aware as I can be of the long passage of time from the Big Bang to the present. I see signs of "old age" - things that have been around for a long time - on the beach (horseshoe crabs) and in the yard (dawn redwood). It's good to be reminded of these things.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great piece. I was boon in 1961 and by my late 20s was realsing just how close to WWII I was born even though my perception was being part of the space age and colour TV, not Spitfires and Pathé newsreels!
ReplyDeleteCould you do something similar for distances? Perhaps one of the biggest barriers to many people really understanding science (and clinging onto contradictory religious texts) is their inability to comprehend beyond "human scale". Just like time distance is similarly difficult. What is the difference between the size of virus or bacteria cell and a molecule or a neutrino? How far away is Voyager compared with the centre of our galaxy and the centre of the universe? It would be great to see it treated similarly.
Powers of Ten™ (1977)
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0
Here are the best graphs and tools for demonstrating monstrous distances :)
Deletehttp://htwins.net/scale2/
http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/stars/
The best ones that I've found*
DeleteLove those links and yes a post on distances is already in the works. It's such a big topic that I will probably split it up into separate posts.
DeleteA small correction to consider (apologies if this has already been pointed out, too many comments to read but searching didn't find it!): the lifespan so far of the world's oldest living person should be slightly less than half (115 of 237) of the time since 1776.
ReplyDeleteMarvelous post, btw.
I've written a brief response, and challenge, to this blog post. Please check it out.
ReplyDeletehttp://danielturski.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-art-of-distraction.html
This timeline is riddled with errors due to its euro-centric, imperialistic conception of time and the universe as lineal and bound. This is erroneous because time is cyclic and the "universe" is in fact composed of unbound multiverses. This anomie is tied to the development of agriculture and rise of social stratification and patriarchy as well as the alienation of de-melanated humans from their hue-man ancestors. It produces much fear and negativity because it reflects a cultural worldview rooted in a fixation with domination of the superior self over the inferior other. Lineal time of the individual lifespan is imposed over the devalued cyclic time of nature and the collective. Nature is held to be inferior and humans are set not just outside the framework of nature but against nature itself, which must be dominated, and this arises in part due to the alienation of humans in the Northern Cradle from the Southern Cradle of humanity during the Ice Age, which begot trans-generational and inter-ethnic ritual violence linked to a shift in consciousness from spiritual knowing to materialistic fear of the unknown due to changes in levels of the hormones affecting consciousness and corporal hue, which are linked through the pineal gland.
ReplyDeleteThe colonizers were alienated from their ancestral knowledge, so now they must violently strip away that knowledge from all the world's indigenous peoples who know their cosmology. Of course the colonizers would have it that the future be abysmal. What is the point of resisting their domination if all is doomed anyways?
DeleteExcellent piece of work. Took me back to my uni days. Happy day, long gone, but not as long as the KT boundary.
ReplyDeleteJust a few notes on what I've been reading here.
ReplyDeleteAdd David Bohm to the list of physicists who have recognized something beyond the confines of current science.
Memorize Ernest Shrodinger's observation (in 1944):
"Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown."
Remember that "science" is a work in progress. Science a thousand years from now (is we survive) is likely to be as unrecognizable to us as our current science would be to Aristotle (though I think Pythagoras could probably get his mind around it.)
For everyone who is understandably depressed by the cold hard facts presented here (wonderful infographic by the way), here is a flash of hope and optimism:
ReplyDeleteOur own facts and body of knowledge are based upon our own limited tools and methods of observation at our *present* disposal. What we can see of the universe based on these observations is not necessarily the true or even complete picture, by far! Rejoice in that!
Other kinds of matter in the universe may yet come to be discovered, other patterns and energies and forces at play! What looks like a cold end and an inexplicable beginning are just the edges of our own present deductive ability, our scientific lens, and our data arsenal.
In many ways, we are just sentient infants. And infants cry a lot. ;-)
And so, have hope and do not despair just yet, because we are not DONE learning and discovering. As we expand our ever-growing Big Picture, we just might discover that things are far less bleak than they seem now. :-)
Let that be our purpose and our meaning!
Signed,
A Rational Optimist
Forgot to mention, small nit -- the infografic has a couple of typos. The word "envelope" is a noun, and since you use it as verb (as in, engulf or envelop something), it should be "envelop" without the "e."
ReplyDeleteCarry on. :-)
Thanks to those who have pointed out any errors or things that weren't clear. Should all be fixed now.
ReplyDeleteThe word fucked has also been removed, so all teachers and parents who are down with the words shitty and dickish are good to go!
Also, a high-quality single image version will be coming in the next week or two.
Not only was this educational, soothing, and well written, but it was also HILLARIOUS. I especially appreciate the CONFUSING_________DEPRESSING bit on the last one. Really, really, really awesome. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThey forgot Star Wars.
ReplyDeleteHI GUYS I HAVE COME TO EAT YOUR SOULS!
ReplyDeleteIf you're wondering why I say this, click the Like Button and I promise that you'll be allergy free, even of things you had no idea you were allergic to, by TOMORROW MORNING!!!
So please, like me!!!!!!
The Present is the present.
ReplyDeletewhile we live, while we do, while our civilization endures, then everything matters. When it's all over, then it doesn't matter. We are concerned about 'eternity' because we are now alive and though we consider ends, we do not REALLY grasp ending. As long as one is in life, life is all one knows, really.
ReplyDeleteAND that is ok. Live while you live. When you end, you may have a perspective that you cannot have now. It's ok not to be eternal. When a play ends and you go home, you remember the action, you remember that you laughed or cried but on the whole you are ok that the play ended.
This from someone who does deal with human mortality, with endings. In moments of 'foggishness' I am scared and depressed, at other times, not so much. Be well and love.
Wow, you actually managed to create the Total Perspective Vortex.
ReplyDeleteWas fairy cake involved?
I loved your graphs and the blurbs are great. I personally embrace the insignificance of humanity. Religion and spirituality only serve to inflate the ego and teach you the concept of eternity which is not constructive at all. If we all just accept the ephemerality of all things, it teaches you to appreciate your life even more. Have fun, bring enjoyment to others, and don't be afraid to take risks. There's no reason to be afraid of anything because you're just a tiny flash in the pan and death is coming soon, so what the hell?
ReplyDeletePssssst! the answer is 42 man...
ReplyDeleteI'd like to use your wonderful graphs in a video, would that be ok if I posted links to your original source material?
ReplyDelete