11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
If Time is the Eiffle Tower, Then Man is the Paint on the...
Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If The Eiffel Tower were now to represent the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno. 1 
notes
notesAnd would we assume the paint was the purpose of the tower?
11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Mark Twain's Description of Evolution
Adam is fading out. It is on account of Darwin and that crowd. I can see that he is not going to last much longer. There's a plenty of signs. He is getting belittled to a germ—a little bit of a speck that you can't see without a microscope powerful enough to raise a gnat to the size of a church. They take that speck and breed from it: first a flea; then a fly, then a bug, then cross these and get a fish, then a raft of fishes, all kinds, then cross the whole lot and get a reptile, then work...Folksonomies: humor big history
Folksonomies: humor big history
1 notes
notesWitty.
05 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Sad Evolutionary History of Humans
I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toi...Folksonomies: evolution big history
Folksonomies: evolution big history
1 notes
notesCome out of the wilderness as a brute, filled with terrors, and constantly subject to a cruel world.
13 APR 2012 by ideonexus
The Eiffel Tower as a Symbol of Time
Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; & anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno.Folksonomies: big history time
Folksonomies: big history time
1 From Mark Twain, with the paint on the top of it as Man's time on Earth.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Carl Sagan Summarizes Evolution of Life On Earth
Eventually, many billions of years ago, a molecule was formed that had a
remarkable capability. It was able to produce, out of the molecular building blocks
of the surrounding waters, a fairly accurate copy of itself. In such a molecular
system there is a set of instructions, a molecular code, containing the sequence of
building blocks from which the larger molecule is constructed. When, by accident,
there is a change in the sequence, the copy is likewise changed. Such a molecular
system – ...Folksonomies: evolution big history
Folksonomies: evolution big history
From molecules competing for materials, to life, all the way up to humans.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Big History as a Fable Part II
Sex and death evolved – processes that vastly increased the rate of natural
selection. Some organisms evolved hard parts, climbed onto, and survived on the
land. The pace of production of more complex forms accelerated. Flight evolved.
Enormous four-legged beasts thundered across the steaming jungles. Small beasts
emerged, born live, instead of in hard-shelled containers filled with replicas of the
early oceans. They survived through swiftness and cunning – and increasingly long
periods i...Folksonomies: wonder big history
Folksonomies: wonder big history
1 Carl Sagan's account of the history of our Universe continued.
01 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Big History as a Fable
Once upon a time, about ten or fifteen billion years ago, the universe was
without form. There were no galaxies. There were no stars. There were no
planets. And there was no life. Darkness was upon the face of the deep. The
universe was hydrogen and helium. The explosion of the Big Bang had passed, and
the fires of that titanic event – either the creation of the universe or the ashes of a
previous incarnation of the universe – were rumbling feebly down the corridors of
space.
But the gas...Folksonomies: wonder big history
Folksonomies: wonder big history
Carl Sagan tells the story of our Universe's history as a fairy tale.
13 DEC 2011 by ideonexus
Origins of the Big Bang Theory and Evidence For It
That the universe is expanding was news to Einstein. But the possibility that the galaxies are moving away from each other had been proposed a few years before Hubble's papers on theoretical grounds arising from Einstein's own equations. In 1922, Russian physicist and mathematician Alexander Friedmann investigated what would happen in a model universe based upon two assumptions that greatly simplified the mathematics: that the universe looks identical in every direction, and that it looks tha... 1 notes
notesThe logical conclusion drawn by a Catholic Priest and the Cosmic Background Radiation (CMBR) we see left over from the event.
16 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Big History: A Summary of Evolution of Life on Earth
The first organisms, simple photosynthetic bacteria, appear in sediments
about 3.5 billion years old, only about a billion years after the
planet was formed. These single cells were all that occupied the Earth
for the next two billion years, after which we see the first simple “eukaryotes”:
organisms having true cells with nuclei and chromosomes. Then,
around 600 million years ago, a whole gamut of relatively simple but
multicelled organisms arise, including worms, jellyfish, and sponges....Folksonomies: evolution big history
Folksonomies: evolution big history
1 notes
notesA good summary of the origin of life on Earth evolving all the way up to human beings.
