In Thursday's lecture, I was very interested in the idea of taking the evolution of the universe and cramming it into only 12 short hours. Once this was done, it could be seen just how little of time was spent on what seems to us as the important things. Out of the 12 hours, the most time was spent on the accumulation of oxygen alone. Eight hours were spent on oxygen filling the atmosphere and rising to a high enough level for animal survival. Now I may be going out on a limb here, but I find it fascinating that most of earth's life was spent on producing one single element, yet dinosaurs came and went in a flash.
I would really like to comment on the idea of a fraction of a second as well, but that still blows my mind. I'm still trying to catch that fraction before it flies by my head . . .
I agree, when I was at home, I was cleaning my bed room. While i was moving things out of my closet, I fount a ferbie from a christmas 12 years ago, and when I tried to make it work, it was broken. Its a piece of crap toy, made from plastic and who knows what, and it only lasted 12 years. It put into perspective how much "stuff" human make, and how unnecessary all of it is. That means in the 12 seconds humans have been here, it was here for almost NO time. So that ferbie put in perspective how ridiculous it is, and how we need to change our priorities as humans.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how long oxygen is going to last? And if we are going to last as long as it has existed. It's as if the universe put more thought into what we needed to breathe and then when we came to existence we just kinda got thrown together. I wonder if we are just going to keep evoloving/technologically advancing ourselfs so much that we are still be "created" in the same lenghth of time it took oxygen to be created. Or will we just be a flash like the dinosours, and a new better species will evolve and find all the traces we left, figure out the 12 hour deal and say, wow. humans sure didn't last long. Just like those dinos...
ReplyDeleteI agree and the whole idea of cramming the universe into the 12 short hours. I wonder if things would be different if say humans were around for longer or say we took something such as the the idea of dinosaurs and how they played a role.
ReplyDeleteI thought the universe being crammed into 12 hours was very interesting because it makes you really wonder how long human life is going to last. The dinosaurs were only here for a very very short time, yet when we look at history it seemed in my mind that they were here a lot longer than that.
ReplyDeleteIt also makes me curious about other planets. Is there any evidence of organisms on other plants that could be making oxygen and in millions of years be a place humans could inhabit?
Learning earths evolution from the perspective of 12 hours was somewhat humbling since it showed how little time humans have been on earth. Humans as a species like to think that we are more important than everything else around us, and that the earth was made for us, but when it comes to the history of the earth we have hardly made an appearance. At the same time however, it is interesting to see how much of an impact we have made during the short time we have been here especially when it comes to the earth's health. I have no doubt that the earth will continue to exist for many more billions of years but it will be interesting to see if humans can eventually figure out a balance that allows us to last for that long too.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't it just blow your mind thinking that we've been here in this planet for only seconds in that 12 hour time frame? Yet what is equally amazing is how in such a little time frame we are inflicting damage to the earth through the side effects of us being here. The industrial revolution was an age that brought drastic change to not only human-kind, but to our planet as well. We humans, are contributing so much to this planet's changes some good, some devastating.
ReplyDeleteAdding to what Fran questioned of our miniscule time frame on this earth, but what is our future going to be like? What are we role within that future. Today it appears that the human race is at it's best, but we forget that our future isn't so certain.... like those dinosaurs who "ruled" the earth, now are extinct. Our civilizations will one day crumble. When? We can't say, but it is inevitable. The good question we can ask ourselves now is, what can we do to preserve our home planet?
Adding to JR. We as humans are contributing to the planet's changes because we see the differences through out time. We are using a lot of Earth's natural resources and what will we do once it's no longer available? What if an asteroid came and hit Earth like it did to the dinosaurs? We will no longer be here and possibly some other form of life will evolve on Earth millions of years from now. Interesting to think about it.
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