thanks to curiosity stream for
supporting PBS Digital Studios hey smart
people Joe here picture five balloons
that was easy
now picture a thousand that wasn't that
hard was it
not so fast smartypants that's only
three hundred 99 balloons that's a
thousand my point is we stink at
imagining big numbers the human brain is
good at so much yet so so bad at big
numbers let's see if we can fix that
this big number fail isn't totally our
fault but during our evolution we only
had to pay attention to small numbers
like fingers toes how many people live
in our clan and beyond that it was just
there's many mammoths over there
a massive magnitude a multitude if you
will and that did just fine until we
invented science and history and started
using really big numbers when it comes
to putting big numbers in perspective
nowhere did we fail harder than in deep
time deep time is the geologic time
scale it's the history of the earth and
everything on it we're talking millions
and billions of years not tens or
hundreds and our brains are really bad
at putting these huge magnitudes into
perspective for instance my science
brain knows a billions a thousand times
bigger than a million but then I think
about the fact that a million seconds is
11 and a half days and a billion seconds
is 31.7 years and my brain breaks a
little you know Cleopatra the Egyptian
ruler she died in 30 BC long time ago
but she lived closer to the first Taco
Bell opening than she did to the Great
Pyramid being built and t-rex lived
closer to us than it did to Stegosaurus
what I mean is we don't really
understand deep time at all so I'm out
here to put things in perspective for
you we're going to take an actual
journey through the history of the earth
to see how long ago things
really happened and how much time
happened in between the parts of the
history of the earth will be played by
this pink string all along this are
different events in Earth's history and
the distances in between those events
are cut to scale based on how many
thousands or millions or even billions
of years ago that they happened so let's
start playing with some string here we
are about four and a half billion years
ago at the formation of the earth kind
of a big deal
kind of a major event in Earth's history
and apparently it happened next to this
tree oh the moon just formed I didn't
take long I don't see it though cool
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Oh liquid water love this stuff and I'm
a big deal for life formation of the
Earth's atmosphere earth is massive
enough now that it can start keeping
gases close to its surface thanks to
gravity but it was mostly stuff like
carbon dioxide ammonia methane none of
this sweet sweet oxygen stuff yet still
not a lot happening right now the first
living organisms this is kind of a big
deal at this time Earth's conditions
have settled down enough to let
chemistry start doing whatever cool
chemistry stuff it took to create the
first known living things sure they were
simple but they're your ancestors show
some respect
about a billion years has passed from
the formation of the earth to this point
the word is getting started
well a lot going on here nothing that
important we've got oxygen now for the
first billion years of life on Earth
there was nothing really making oxygen
until cyanobacteria showed up and
started doing photosynthesis for the
very first time so they were just
spitting out oxygen as a waste product
into the atmosphere and since there was
nothing there to really use it it just
built up over time and actually led to
one of the largest mass extinction
events in the history of the planet well
I see a big event coming 2.2 billion
years ago the first eukaryotes what does
that mean well that's when cells got
organelles you know like the nucleus the
Golgi apparatus the mitochondria the
powerhouse of the cell does anything
happen on this planet oh there's
something the supercontinent Rodinia
broke up thought they'd stay together
forever
now 710 million years ago that means 3.8
billion years of Earth's history have
passed to get to this point when you
think about it almost everything that we
think about in earth's history hasn't
even happened yet we still have a long
ways to go ah 600 million years ago the
first multicellular organisms on earth
that's right
all the life up until this point had
just been single-celled but now we get
teamwork cooperation awesome
multicellularity only things like us
happen a lot further that way something
cool happens right here 540 million
years ago or so is a period of time we
call the Cambrian explosion when we look
at the fossil record we just see this
explosion in the diversity of life it's
when things got interesting 470 million
years ago we get the first true land
plants they didn't look like these
plants there were a lot more basic
things are about to start happening a
lot more rapidly so hold on your hats
400 million years ago we find the first
insects the first amphibian the first
tree and the first shark fossils
although I would assume not all in the
same place
359 million years ago we find the first
coal deposits it's right all those
fossil fuels that we've been digging out
of the earth and lighting on fire
they started forming about now 315
million years ago we get the first
reptiles not dinosaurs not that cool yet
although they were pretty cool
they just weren't that cool 280 million
years ago supercontinent Pangea comes
together maybe you've heard of it 4.2
billion years has passed we're just now
getting to the first flowering plants
230 million years ago first dinosaurs
200 million years ago the Atlantic Ocean
opens up for the first time 180 million
years ago we get the earliest mammals
and birds but you're still dinosaurs
this is all of history that we have left
and the Rocky Mountains are just now
forming well 65 million years ago
adios dinosaurs that's the asteroid 56
million years ago we get the earliest
primates 40 million years ago India hits
Asia this is basically everything we
could consider human history
Australopithecus shows up for the very
first time an early walking hominid just
like Lucy the first stone tools the
first controlled use of fire
anatomically modern humans don't show up
until here and here we are at the
present and here we are in the present
everything when we consider our history
happens in less than a millimeter from
the end here's looking back down the
entire history of Earth dogs and
everything stuff like this
the last Neanderthal the extinction of
the woolly mammoths the rise of human
civilizations is less than a thread in a
thread of yarn the moral of this story
is that most things happened a really
really really long time ago and we
humans are very new here so go pick up a
rock and take a second to respect your
elders on the bright side even though I
keep getting older I'm actually still
very very young and now I can prove it
with string stay curious
once they a big thank you to curiosity
stream for supporting PBS Digital
Studios a curiosity stream is a
subscription streaming service that
offers documentaries and nonfiction
titles from a variety of filmmakers
including curiosity stream originals
like this one called deep time history
it's a three-part series chronicling how
human history has been shaped by science
even before we knew what science was
from the surprising ways that humans
first figure out how to harvest energy
to how the Scientific Revolution ended
up putting salt and pepper on your table
you can learn more at curiosity stream
comm slash smart hey so do you ever wish
there was like a whole channel devoted
to deep time well good news there is go
check out our friends at PBS eons
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