Deep Time.
I shall preface this by stating here and now I have never had much truck with the "think of the history of life as a year" or "reduce the age of the Earth to a day". Humans are always described as appearing at half past eleven on December 31st, or in the last seconds before midnight. But that's the whole of human history there. Its almost as hard to imagine 200 thousand years as it is 200 million. They still don't mesh with the human experience.
Breath in. Now breathe out.
In the time it took you to do that (I'm going to guess and say about one and a half seconds many things can happen. We see the moon as it was 1.5 seconds ago. A male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird can beat his wings 300 times during that period. Now compress things the other way. Shrink the traditional Three Score Years and Ten to that length of time. What of human history then? What of the history of the planet.
One and a half seconds ago the Second World War raged across Europe. Three seconds and we are back to the height of the Victorians, Six seconds takes us to the Restoration, the plague and the foundation of the Royal Society. Fifteen seconds takes you back before the Renaissance to the early 14th Century. Thirty seconds and Islam is founded. A minute and the Olmecs are building pyramids in America in 790BC. Two minutes takes us back to before the Egyptians were building there, another minute and there are no metal tools, but agriculture is already developed.
Breath in. Breathe out.
After an hour we are deep into the Ice Age. Mammoths roam across much of Europe, Asia and North America. Two hours and the people we see no longer look so familiar. The earliest records of Homo sapiens go back 250,000 years or so. After six hours at work you'll be looking forward to going home. And yet at the speed we travel back in time we have only gone back one million years. At this rate one day is equal to four million years. 65 million years ago dinosaurs (apart from birds) became extinct. That's roughly 16 days in our comparison. Mammals go from small and insignificant to dominating the ecosystems we see today.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
63 days after beginning this journey we reach what some have termed the "Great Dying". 250 million years ago 83% of all genera were wiped out in the Permian Mass Extinction. After 100 days we find the first tetrapods. Insects have already colonised the land, and the first forests are well established. Four and a half months takes you back to the Cambrian explosion and the first trilobites, 525 million years ago.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
One hundred and seventy five days. Nearly six months. The Cryogenian, 700 million years ago and the "Snowball Earth". The earliest complex multicellular organism is from 1200 million years ago. Ten months. Two years, four and a half months and we have the first fossil evidence of life on earth. Just over three months later and we find the first geochemical evidence of life.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
If you lived your life in the time it takes to do that, then the oldest minerals on Earth are three years old. Time enough for life to unfold all the precxious things it has.
Breath in. Now breathe out.
In the time it took you to do that (I'm going to guess and say about one and a half seconds many things can happen. We see the moon as it was 1.5 seconds ago. A male Ruby-Throated Hummingbird can beat his wings 300 times during that period. Now compress things the other way. Shrink the traditional Three Score Years and Ten to that length of time. What of human history then? What of the history of the planet.
One and a half seconds ago the Second World War raged across Europe. Three seconds and we are back to the height of the Victorians, Six seconds takes us to the Restoration, the plague and the foundation of the Royal Society. Fifteen seconds takes you back before the Renaissance to the early 14th Century. Thirty seconds and Islam is founded. A minute and the Olmecs are building pyramids in America in 790BC. Two minutes takes us back to before the Egyptians were building there, another minute and there are no metal tools, but agriculture is already developed.
Breath in. Breathe out.
After an hour we are deep into the Ice Age. Mammoths roam across much of Europe, Asia and North America. Two hours and the people we see no longer look so familiar. The earliest records of Homo sapiens go back 250,000 years or so. After six hours at work you'll be looking forward to going home. And yet at the speed we travel back in time we have only gone back one million years. At this rate one day is equal to four million years. 65 million years ago dinosaurs (apart from birds) became extinct. That's roughly 16 days in our comparison. Mammals go from small and insignificant to dominating the ecosystems we see today.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
63 days after beginning this journey we reach what some have termed the "Great Dying". 250 million years ago 83% of all genera were wiped out in the Permian Mass Extinction. After 100 days we find the first tetrapods. Insects have already colonised the land, and the first forests are well established. Four and a half months takes you back to the Cambrian explosion and the first trilobites, 525 million years ago.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
One hundred and seventy five days. Nearly six months. The Cryogenian, 700 million years ago and the "Snowball Earth". The earliest complex multicellular organism is from 1200 million years ago. Ten months. Two years, four and a half months and we have the first fossil evidence of life on earth. Just over three months later and we find the first geochemical evidence of life.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
If you lived your life in the time it takes to do that, then the oldest minerals on Earth are three years old. Time enough for life to unfold all the precxious things it has.