探索频道 Cosmos 宇宙的边疆15
(The Big Bang is at upper left in the first second of January 1st, 15 billions years later, is our present time,) the last second of December 31st.
Every month is one and a quarter billion years long, each day represents 40 million years, each second stands for some five hundred 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 are 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 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 occupying 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 PM on December 31st. And with the passing of every cosmic minute, each minute 30 thousand 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 11th hour, the 59th minute, the 20th second, domestication of plants and animals begins. And application of the human talent for making tools.
11:59:35, settled agricultural communities evolved into the first cities. We humans appear on the cosmic 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 ten 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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