The Universe 10

Time of the Universe

The cosmic calendar compresses the local history of the universe into a single year. If the universe began on January 1st, it was not until May that the Milky Way formed. Other planetary systems may have appeared in June, July, and August, but our sun and Earth not until mid-September. Life arose soon after. Everything humans have ever done occurred in that bright speck at the lower right of the cosmic calendar. The Big Bang is at upper left in the first second of January 1st. Fifteen billion years later is our present time: the last second of December 31st.

Every month is 1¼ billion years long. Each day represents 40 million years. Each second stands for some 500 years of our history. The blinking of an eye in the drama of cosmic time. At this scale, the cosmic calendar is the size of a football field, but all of human history would occupy an area the size of my hand. We’re just beginning to trace the long and tortuous path which began with the primeval fireball and led to the condensation of matter: gas, dust, stars, galaxies, and—at least in our little nook of the universe—planets and life, intelligence and inquisitive men and women. We’ve emerged so recently that the familiar events of our recorded history occupy only the last seconds of the last minute of December 31st. Some critical events for the human species, however, began much earlier: minutes earlier.

So we change our scale from months to minutes. Down here, the first humans made their debut around 10:30 p.m. on December 31st. And with the passing of every cosmic minute—each minute 30,000 years long—we began the arduous journey towards understanding where we live and who we are.

11:46—only 14 minutes ago, humans have tamed fire. 11:59:20—the evening of the last day of the cosmic year, the 11st hour, the 59st minute, the 20st second, the domestication of plants and animals begins. An application of the human talent for making tools. 11:59:35—settled agricultural communities evolved into the first cities.

We humans appear on the comic calendar so recently that our recorded history occupies only the last few seconds of the last minute of December 31st. In the vast ocean of time which this calendar represents, all our memories are confined to this small square. Every person we’ve ever heard of lived somewhere in there. All those kings and battles, migrations and inventions, wars and loves. Everything in the history books happens here, in the last 10 seconds of the cosmic calendar.

We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: we can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15-billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.

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