How does this relate to Big History?
SCALE
Let’s just start with
prehistory/history
• Imagine that the entire history of
the earth was equal to the height
of the Empire State building.
• Placing a book on top of it would
represent the time that humans
have existed on the planet.
• A coin stacked on top of the book
would represent recorded history!
Or, imagine this…
If the history of the 5 billion year old Earth
was shrunk to fit within the span of one
calendar year…
• Humans would first be seen making tools
on December 31.
• They wouldn’t begin farming until the last
60 seconds of December 31.
• History itself would not begin until man
began to write during the last millisecond
of December 31!
Powers of Ten
Scale: How do different things
appear from different distances—
or, how does scale impact our
viewpoint?
Powers of Ten takes us on an adventure
in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by
the lakeside in Chicago, this famous
film transports us to the outer edges of
the Universe. Every 10 seconds we view
the starting point from 10 times farther
out until our own galaxy is visible only
as a speck of light among many others.
Returning to Earth with breathtaking
speed, we move inward—into the hand
of the sleeping picnicker—with 10 times
more magnification every 10 seconds.
Our journey ends inside a proton of a
carbon atom within a DNA molecule in
a white blood cell.
Powers of Ten
Scientific Notation
Infograph:
Powers of Ten
Let’s continue…
Powers of Ten
Discussion
Why would anyone want to
look at the Universe from
such distance? What would
that be good for? Why would
anyone want to look at
anything so close? What
would that be good for?
Infograph:
Another cool Infograph…
Big History on a Football Field
Have you ever met a person over 100 years old? Imagine the changes such
people have observed in their lifetimes! There are Galapagos tortoises that have
lived for 175 or more years and some whales often live for 200 or more years.
The lifespans of most animals are a lot different from those of humans, but
differences on this scale are not that hard to appreciate. When you compare
human lifetimes with the history of our Solar System, the Milky Way, or the
Universe, it gets tricky. The scale of time needed for considering the Universe
and its parts, which are recorded in billions of years, is enormous compared with
that of a human lifetime.
To help put the timescale of Big History into perspective, we will create a
timeline showing the eight major thresholds of increasing complexity on the
sideline of a football field.
Historical Notation: Tracking Time
1. Draw a horizontal line across your paper
2.Write “0” in the middle. This represents
the approximate date of the birth of
Christ.
3. Write B.C. to the left of the “0” and A.D. to
the right.
4.Do you know what these letters
represent?
Basic Terminology
B.C.
A.D.
Before Christ
Anno Domini
• “In the year of our Lord”
B.C.E.
C.E.
• Common Era
Before Common Era
•
•
•
"Common Era" can be found as early as 1708 in English
adopted by some authors and publishers wishing to be neutral
and non-religious
BOTH ARE OKAY!
Basic Terminology
Historical Timeline
10,000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
450 B.C.E
500 C.E
500 C.E
2014 C.E.
0
Period: a way to categorize blocks of time in history
*Also called an era*
Periodization: the process of assigning periods to history
More About Tracking Time
Years
• Each individual year
Decades
• 10 years
Centuries
• 100 years
Millenia (plural)
• 1,000 years
Back to Your Timeline (Practice)…
1. Divide each side of your timeline into five equal spaces,
both to the left and right of the “0”. Each division will
represent 100 years.
2. How many total years are represented on your
timeline? How many years fall in B.C.E. (B.C.)? How
many years fall in C.E. (A.D.)?
3. What do historians mean when they refer to the 1 st
century C.E. or 1 st century B.C.E.? Write it in on your
timeline. Do the same for 2 nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries
C.E. and B.C.E.
4. Now, write the years 100, 200, 300, and 400, both
B.C.E. and C.E., above the lines dividing your spaces.
What years are included in the 1 st century? The 4th
century?
MY Big History
My Timeline
Include the major turning points in your lives so far…
One of these turning points should relate to your community,
your culture and/or family.
Aim for at least four or five big turning points and you should
name each of them.
For a little fun, you can think about some possible future
turning points.
Video
A Big History of Everything – H2
Questions
What is the Law of Entropy?
• The natural tendency of all things to
move from order to disorder, or from
the complex to the simple. Throughout
all time and space, the Universe has
been ruled by this law.
What is the fundamental mystery
that links the threshold moments
together?
• These moments seem to defy the law of
entropy, in which things move from
something simple to something more
complex. These are eight moments
when we move from chaos to order.
How does gravity impact these
threshold moments?
• Gravity forms stars and planets, which
lead to life, which leads to increasing
complexity. Things only get complex in
particular areas of the Universe, where
the Goldilocks Conditions exist.
Follow Up
Think about the timelines you
created in the opening…
Could your big “turning points”
count as threshold moments?
How and why do they count as
threshold moments?
Do you need to revise anything
you did?
Game: Threshold Memory (Concentration)
Summary:
The appearance of
complex things in the
Universe represents
turning points that are
called thresholds of
increasing complexity,
and they are critical to
the Big History story.
There are eight
thresholds in Big
History