The history of the universe compressed into one year
I can’t remember where I got this, or I’d give ‘em credit, but it’s definitely worth recreating here.
To most of us, a few thousand years seems like a long time. It isn’t. The universe is 15 billion years old. But, “billions of years” is inconceivable to most of us. To understand the universe’s age, assume the universe began on the first second of the new year, January 1. Today is the end of the year at the stroke of midnight, December 31. Then, the Earth was created September 13 (4.5 billion years ago). Life on Earth began September 25 (about 4 billion years ago). Dinosaurs roamed from December 26 to 30 (225 to 65 million years ago). Humans as Neanderthals first walked the Earth 8 minutes, 45 seconds before year end (250,000 years ago). Humans as Homo sapiens (modern man) came about 1.4 minutes ago (38,000 BC). Twenty-five seconds ago, there were only 3 million humans in the entire world (the population of Colorado spread over the entire world). The discoveries of the wheel, farming, and metal-working came only 16 to 18 seconds ago (5500-6500 BC). The first significant collection of Greek writings began less than 6 seconds before midnight (800 BC). The Industrial revolution began less than 1 second ago (1750-1800 AD). Before that, almost everything was done by hand. Computers were invented in the last 1/10 second of the year (in 1946). If you and I live to be extremely old (100 years), it is under 2/10 of a second in this universe year.
This really puts a lot of things into fascinating perspective. Life was around for ‘3 months’ before the dinosaurs came along for their 5 days! Then along comes us for the past 1 minute 24 seconds!! Of that, all of written history is only the last 6 seconds!!
Wow!
So, we've been observing the expansion of the universe carefully, with modern scientific equipment for about 75 years now, since Edwin Hubble first demonstrated this in 1929. That's about 3/20 of a second of the universe year. 3/20 of a second and astronomers and physicists are trying mightily to determine whether the universe will keep expanding forever, or eventually slow down and begin to collapse. If the universe is really this unimaginably old, I don’t think we have the perspective needed to really answer that question.
Wow. It would appear that in my mind I've just put that great question of science into the same category as other unanswerable metaphysical questions, like "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin"... Huh.
