this video is sponsored by blinkist get a seven day free trial 25 off link is premium and enjoy two memberships for the price of one by using the link in the description [Music] 13. 8 billion years ago there is as far as we know nothing 13. 6 billion years ago a space rapidly expands a slew of particles scatters across it a Skyline of stars begins to form 12.
9 billion years ago gravity brings together matter from across the open Cosmic sea to form the first galaxies islands of vast localized gas and dust and Stellar objects held together across gravitational strings 4. 5 billion years ago a cloud of gas and dust orbits a young star in a quiet region of an ordinary Galaxy it coalesces Tighter and Tighter eventually forming a planet a single planet in a single Galaxy amongst incalculable others Across the Universe 3. 8 billion years ago life on this planet begins 2.
6 million years tools are made and used by living things 150 000 years ago language abstract thinking and the burgeoning of culture begins on the scale of one minute the entire history of modern Humanity lasted roughly the last eight ten thousands of a second put differently if the entire history of the universe were compressed into one day modern Humanity wouldn't appear until after the last single second a blink and each of our individual lives take place within the second lasting around four ten thousands of that fraction of a fraction of a fraction and the universe has only just begun here we are within this tiny infinitesimal moment of time so tied up with it with everything we are and everything we do we think this sliver of something means everything because to us it does but to everything we mean nothing when referring to the pale blue dot photo taken by the Voyager 1 space probe showing Earth from a record distance away Carl Sagan said on that everyone you love everyone you know everyone you ever heard of every human being whoever was lived out their lives the aggregate of our joy and suffering thousands of confident religions ideologies and economic doctrines every Hunter and forager every hero and coward every Creator and destroyer of civilization every King and peasant every superstar every supreme leader every saint and sinner in the history of our species live there on a mode of dust suspended in a Sunbeam think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and Emperors so that in glory and Triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a DOT our posturings our imagined self-importance the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe are challenged by this point of pale light our planet is a lonely Speck and a great enveloping Cosmic dark one day you appear on this planet soon the days turn into a flip book your life becoming an animated film containing everything you know and care about everything you fear and dread but what feels like a film to you will in fact be more like a single frame in an infinite film to everything else you don't know how you got here you don't know why you're here you don't know how any of this really works or where any of it is going no one does and before you know it you won't be here at all no one will don't worry like the entire history of the universe before you the entire future of it will be over before you know it as well if you're lucky in let's say 80 years you close your eyes for the last time your children grandchildren friends and family whatever amount you still have left if any attend your funeral they cry for a little while then they mostly move on they have to in order to survive themselves in 200 years all direct traces of you are lost memories of you how you looked talked and acted what you did and didn't do the distant blur of your story have all dissolved away with the last person who knew of you by now all perceptions of you had become inaccurate distortions and projections anyway void of any authentic connection if you did something especially noteworthy during your lifetime direct traces of you may continue for a little while but not much longer in 100 000 years the 21st century is but a strange section in the record of History occasionally reflected on by individuals that no longer relate to it in any meaningful way 5 million years most of the Earth's pre-existing species are extinct due to the background Extinction rate they've all been replaced with new species one billion years there is no life left on Earth 5.
