The history of our world in 18 minutes | David Christian
The history of our world in 18 minutes | David Christian
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Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is “Big History”: an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.
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Content
16.109 -> First, a video.
24.657 -> Yes, it is a scrambled egg.
29.411 -> But as you look at it,
30.768 -> I hope you'll begin to feel
just slightly uneasy.
36.649 -> Because you may notice
that what's actually happening
40.011 -> is that the egg is unscrambling itself.
42.26 -> And you'll now see the yolk
and the white have separated.
44.983 -> And now they're going to be
poured back into the egg.
48.03 -> And we all know in our heart of hearts
50.522 -> that this is not the way
the universe works.
54.696 -> A scrambled egg is mush --
tasty mush -- but it's mush.
57.825 -> An egg is a beautiful, sophisticated thing
60.26 -> that can create even more
sophisticated things,
62.523 -> such as chickens.
64.332 -> And we know in our heart of hearts
66.26 -> that the universe does not travel
from mush to complexity.
70.45 -> In fact, this gut instinct
72.869 -> is reflected in one of the most
fundamental laws of physics,
75.765 -> the second law of thermodynamics,
or the law of entropy.
79.162 -> What that says basically
80.945 -> is that the general
tendency of the universe
84.096 -> is to move from order and structure
87.723 -> to lack of order, lack of structure --
90.411 -> in fact, to mush.
91.899 -> And that's why that video
feels a bit strange.
95.685 -> And yet, look around us.
99.454 -> What we see around us
is staggering complexity.
103.549 -> Eric Beinhocker estimates
that in New York City alone,
106.862 -> there are some 10 billion SKUs,
or distinct commodities, being traded.
110.932 -> That's hundreds of times
as many species as there are on Earth.
115.26 -> And they're being traded by a species
of almost seven billion individuals,
119.26 -> who are linked by trade,
travel, and the Internet
122.669 -> into a global system
of stupendous complexity.
127.826 -> So here's a great puzzle:
130.191 -> in a universe ruled
by the second law of thermodynamics,
134.862 -> how is it possible
136.69 -> to generate the sort
of complexity I've described,
139.26 -> the sort of complexity
represented by you and me
143.072 -> and the convention center?
146.119 -> Well, the answer seems to be,
148.096 -> the universe can create complexity,
151.26 -> but with great difficulty.
153.87 -> In pockets,
154.991 -> there appear
what my colleague, Fred Spier,
157.332 -> calls "Goldilocks conditions" --
159.498 -> not too hot, not too cold,
161.573 -> just right for the creation of complexity.
164.26 -> And slightly more complex things appear.
166.551 -> And where you have
slightly more complex things,
168.814 -> you can get slightly more complex things.
171.21 -> And in this way, complexity
builds stage by stage.
176.135 -> Each stage is magical
178.437 -> because it creates the impression
of something utterly new
182.034 -> appearing almost out of nowhere
in the universe.
184.861 -> We refer in big history to these moments
as threshold moments.
189.131 -> And at each threshold,
the going gets tougher.
192.26 -> The complex things get more fragile,
195.526 -> more vulnerable;
197.26 -> the Goldilocks conditions
get more stringent,
200.815 -> and it's more difficult
to create complexity.
204.728 -> Now, we, as extremely complex creatures,
208.056 -> desperately need to know this story
210.26 -> of how the universe creates complexity
despite the second law,
214.942 -> and why complexity means
vulnerability and fragility.
220.745 -> And that's the story
that we tell in big history.
223.689 -> But to do it, you have do something
225.42 -> that may, at first sight,
seem completely impossible.
228.149 -> You have to survey the whole
history of the universe.
232.748 -> So let's do it.
234.26 -> (Laughter)
236.193 -> Let's begin by winding the timeline back
239.663 -> 13.7 billion years,
242.583 -> to the beginning of time.
252.581 -> Around us, there's nothing.
254.986 -> There's not even time or space.
258.474 -> Imagine the darkest,
emptiest thing you can
262.196 -> and cube it a gazillion times
and that's where we are.
265.992 -> And then suddenly,
268.356 -> bang!
269.388 -> A universe appears, an entire universe.
271.619 -> And we've crossed our first threshold.
273.499 -> The universe is tiny;
it's smaller than an atom.
275.896 -> It's incredibly hot.
277.26 -> It contains everything
that's in today's universe,
279.809 -> so you can imagine, it's busting.
281.627 -> And it's expanding at incredible speed.
284.26 -> And at first, it's just a blur,
286.197 -> but very quickly distinct things
begin to appear in that blur.
289.743 -> Within the first second,
291.26 -> energy itself shatters
into distinct forces
294.26 -> including electromagnetism and gravity.
297.366 -> And energy does something
else quite magical:
299.818 -> it congeals to form matter --
303.074 -> quarks that will create protons
305.428 -> and leptons that include electrons.
307.59 -> And all of that happens
in the first second.
309.717 -> Now we move forward 380,000 years.
314.26 -> That's twice as long as humans
have been on this planet.
317.931 -> And now simple atoms appear
of hydrogen and helium.
323.877 -> Now I want to pause for a moment,
325.504 -> 380,000 years after the origins
of the universe,
328.26 -> because we actually know quite a lot
about the universe at this stage.
332.773 -> We know above all
that it was extremely simple.
335.718 -> It consisted of huge clouds
of hydrogen and helium atoms,
339.541 -> and they have no structure.
341.493 -> They're really a sort of cosmic mush.
344.652 -> But that's not completely true.
346.732 -> Recent studies
348.26 -> by satellites such as the WMAP satellite
351.145 -> have shown that, in fact,
352.746 -> there are just tiny differences
in that background.
355.519 -> What you see here,
357.26 -> the blue areas are about a thousandth
of a degree cooler
361.59 -> than the red areas.
363.006 -> These are tiny differences,
364.403 -> but it was enough
for the universe to move on
366.697 -> to the next stage of building complexity.
368.696 -> And this is how it works.
370.895 -> Gravity is more powerful
where there's more stuff.
375.817 -> So where you get slightly denser areas,
378.159 -> gravity starts compacting clouds
of hydrogen and helium atoms.
382.1 -> So we can imagine the early universe
breaking up into a billion clouds.
385.674 -> And each cloud is compacted,
387.5 -> gravity gets more powerful
as density increases,
390.54 -> the temperature begins to rise
at the center of each cloud,
393.658 -> and then, at the center,
394.971 -> the temperature crosses
the threshold temperature
397.833 -> of 10 million degrees,
399.423 -> protons start to fuse,
401.852 -> there's a huge release of energy,
404.26 -> and --
405.717 -> bam!
406.757 -> We have our first stars.
408.938 -> From about 200 million years
after the Big Bang,
412.82 -> stars begin to appear
all through the universe,
416.251 -> billions of them.
417.759 -> And the universe is now
significantly more interesting
420.639 -> and more complex.
423.188 -> Stars will create
the Goldilocks conditions
426.328 -> for crossing two new thresholds.
428.631 -> When very large stars die,
431.234 -> they create temperatures so high
433.579 -> that protons begin to fuse
in all sorts of exotic combinations,
437.236 -> to form all the elements
of the periodic table.
440.09 -> If, like me, you're wearing a gold ring,
442.41 -> it was forged in a supernova explosion.
445.878 -> So now the universe
is chemically more complex.
449.101 -> And in a chemically more complex universe,
451.49 -> it's possible to make more things.
453.958 -> And what starts happening
is that, around young suns,
457.474 -> young stars,
459.26 -> all these elements combine,
they swirl around,
461.475 -> the energy of the star stirs them around,
464.279 -> they form particles, they form snowflakes,
they form little dust motes,
469.028 -> they form rocks, they form asteroids,
471.248 -> and eventually,
they form planets and moons.
473.867 -> And that is how our
solar system was formed,
476.841 -> four and a half billion years ago.
480.453 -> Rocky planets like our Earth
are significantly more complex than stars
485.85 -> because they contain
a much greater diversity of materials.
488.636 -> So we've crossed a fourth
threshold of complexity.
492.931 -> Now, the going gets tougher.
496.411 -> The next stage introduces entities
that are significantly more fragile,
500.713 -> significantly more vulnerable,
502.649 -> but they're also much more creative
505.26 -> and much more capable
of generating further complexity.
508.606 -> I'm talking, of course,
about living organisms.
512.734 -> Living organisms are created by chemistry.
514.901 -> We are huge packages of chemicals.
518.115 -> So, chemistry is dominated
by the electromagnetic force.
521.26 -> That operates over smaller
scales than gravity,
523.523 -> which explains why you and I
are smaller than stars or planets.
528.033 -> Now, what are the ideal
conditions for chemistry?
530.874 -> What are the Goldilocks conditions?
532.668 -> Well, first, you need energy,
535.049 -> but not too much.
536.665 -> In the center of a star,
there's so much energy
538.944 -> that any atoms that combine
will just get busted apart again.
542.11 -> But not too little.
543.642 -> In intergalactic space,
544.897 -> there's so little energy
that atoms can't combine.
548.378 -> What you want is just the right amount,
550.26 -> and planets, it turns out, are just right,
552.284 -> because they're close to stars,
but not too close.
555.394 -> You also need a great diversity
of chemical elements,
559.013 -> and you need liquids, such as water.
562.045 -> Why?
563.116 -> Well, in gases, atoms move
past each other so fast
567.012 -> that they can't hitch up.
568.95 -> In solids,
570.696 -> atoms are stuck together, they can't move.
573.26 -> In liquids,
575.002 -> they can cruise and cuddle
578.064 -> and link up to form molecules.
581.04 -> Now, where do you find
such Goldilocks conditions?
583.934 -> Well, planets are great,
585.95 -> and our early Earth was almost perfect.
590.037 -> It was just the right
distance from its star
592.109 -> to contain huge oceans of liquid water.
594.26 -> And deep beneath those oceans,
596.26 -> at cracks in the Earth's crust,
598.26 -> you've got heat seeping up
from inside the Earth,
601.26 -> and you've got a great
diversity of elements.
603.411 -> So at those deep oceanic vents,
605.981 -> fantastic chemistry began to happen,
608.26 -> and atoms combined in all sorts
of exotic combinations.
612.26 -> But of course, life is more
than just exotic chemistry.
617.054 -> How do you stabilize those huge molecules
620.835 -> that seem to be viable?
622.95 -> Well, it's here that life introduces
an entirely new trick.
628.22 -> You don't stabilize the individual;
630.779 -> you stabilize the template,
632.906 -> the thing that carries information,
635.035 -> and you allow the template to copy itself.
637.276 -> And DNA, of course,
is the beautiful molecule
640.451 -> that contains that information.
642.801 -> You'll be familiar
with the double helix of DNA.
645.64 -> Each rung contains information.
648.18 -> So, DNA contains information
about how to make living organisms.
653.315 -> And DNA also copies itself.
655.263 -> So, it copies itself
656.493 -> and scatters the templates
through the ocean.
659.199 -> So the information spreads.
661.017 -> Notice that information
has become part of our story.
664.137 -> The real beauty of DNA though
is in its imperfections.
667.806 -> As it copies itself,
once in every billion rungs,
671.758 -> there tends to be an error.
673.527 -> And what that means
is that DNA is, in effect, learning.
678.26 -> It's accumulating new ways
of making living organisms
681.604 -> because some of those errors work.
683.248 -> So DNA's learning
684.47 -> and it's building greater
diversity and greater complexity.
687.728 -> And we can see this happening
over the last four billion years.
690.934 -> For most of that time of life on Earth,
693.133 -> living organisms have been
relatively simple --
695.394 -> single cells.
696.806 -> But they had great diversity,
and, inside, great complexity.
700.671 -> Then from about 600
to 800 million years ago,
703.599 -> multi-celled organisms appear.
705.714 -> You get fungi, you get fish,
708.239 -> you get plants,
709.778 -> you get amphibia, you get reptiles,
712.513 -> and then, of course,
you get the dinosaurs.
715.999 -> And occasionally, there are disasters.
719.586 -> Sixty-five million years ago,
721.999 -> an asteroid landed on Earth
723.987 -> near the Yucatan Peninsula,
725.801 -> creating conditions equivalent
to those of a nuclear war,
728.793 -> and the dinosaurs were wiped out.
731.166 -> Terrible news for the dinosaurs,
734.26 -> but great news
for our mammalian ancestors,
738.039 -> who flourished
739.26 -> in the niches left empty by the dinosaurs.
742.941 -> And we human beings are part
of that creative evolutionary pulse
748.02 -> that began 65 million years ago
750.38 -> with the landing of an asteroid.
753.796 -> Humans appeared about 200,000 years ago.
756.534 -> And I believe we count
as a threshold in this great story.
760.906 -> Let me explain why.
762.7 -> We've seen that DNA learns in a sense,
765.755 -> it accumulates information.
767.566 -> But it is so slow.
770.128 -> DNA accumulates information
through random errors,
773.624 -> some of which just happen to work.
776.49 -> But DNA had actually generated
a faster way of learning:
779.148 -> it had produced organisms with brains,
781.95 -> and those organisms
can learn in real time.
785.193 -> They accumulate information, they learn.
787.543 -> The sad thing is, when they die,
790.392 -> the information dies with them.
792.479 -> Now what makes humans different
is human language.
796.49 -> We are blessed with a language,
a system of communication,
799.277 -> so powerful and so precise
801.922 -> that we can share what we've learned
with such precision
805.104 -> that it can accumulate
in the collective memory.
808.017 -> And that means
809.26 -> it can outlast the individuals
who learned that information,
813.063 -> and it can accumulate
from generation to generation.
816.26 -> And that's why, as a species,
we're so creative and so powerful,
820.34 -> and that's why we have a history.
823.015 -> We seem to be the only species
in four billion years
826.34 -> to have this gift.
828.057 -> I call this ability collective learning.
831.995 -> It's what makes us different.
833.686 -> We can see it at work
in the earliest stages of human history.
837.949 -> We evolved as a species
in the savanna lands of Africa,
841.26 -> but then you see humans migrating
into new environments,
844.744 -> into desert lands, into jungles,
846.918 -> into the Ice Age tundra of Siberia --
849.378 -> tough, tough environment --
850.847 -> into the Americas, into Australasia.
853.204 -> Each migration involved learning --
855.265 -> learning new ways of exploiting
the environment,
857.772 -> new ways of dealing
with their surroundings.
859.97 -> Then 10,000 years ago,
861.81 -> exploiting a sudden
change in global climate
864.829 -> with the end of the last ice age,
866.425 -> humans learned to farm.
868.623 -> Farming was an energy bonanza.
871.083 -> And exploiting that energy,
human populations multiplied.
874.934 -> Human societies got larger,
denser, more interconnected.
879.101 -> And then from about 500 years ago,
882.476 -> humans began to link up globally
884.539 -> through shipping, through trains,
886.944 -> through telegraph, through the Internet,
889.26 -> until now we seem to form
a single global brain
894.475 -> of almost seven billion individuals.
896.631 -> And that brain is learning at warp speed.
900.572 -> And in the last 200 years,
something else has happened.
903.168 -> We've stumbled on another energy bonanza
905.858 -> in fossil fuels.
907.009 -> So fossil fuels and collective
learning together
909.736 -> explain the staggering complexity
we see around us.
916.505 -> So --
918.668 -> Here we are,
920.009 -> back at the convention center.
921.557 -> We've been on a journey,
a return journey, of 13.7 billion years.
926.967 -> I hope you agree this is a powerful story.
929.46 -> And it's a story in which humans
play an astonishing and creative role.
934.466 -> But it also contains warnings.
937.474 -> Collective learning is a very,
very powerful force,
941.831 -> and it's not clear
that we humans are in charge of it.
947.123 -> I remember very vividly
as a child growing up in England,
950.216 -> living through the Cuban Missile Crisis.
952.847 -> For a few days, the entire biosphere
956.482 -> seemed to be on the verge of destruction.
959.474 -> And the same weapons are still here,
962.663 -> and they are still armed.
965.004 -> If we avoid that trap,
others are waiting for us.
968.647 -> We're burning fossil fuels at such a rate
971.26 -> that we seem to be undermining
the Goldilocks conditions
974.695 -> that made it possible
for human civilizations
976.947 -> to flourish over the last 10,000 years.
980.633 -> So what big history can do
982.933 -> is show us the nature
of our complexity and fragility
986.278 -> and the dangers that face us,
988.226 -> but it can also show us
our power with collective learning.
992.586 -> And now, finally --
995.657 -> this is what I want.
999.448 -> I want my grandson, Daniel,
1002.504 -> and his friends and his generation,
1005.285 -> throughout the world,
1007.102 -> to know the story of big history,
1009.966 -> and to know it so well
1012.029 -> that they understand
both the challenges that face us
1015.719 -> and the opportunities that face us.
1018.26 -> And that's why a group of us
1020.164 -> are building a free, online syllabus
1023.2 -> in big history
1024.542 -> for high-school students
throughout the world.
1027.225 -> We believe that big history
1029.685 -> will be a vital
intellectual tool for them,
1032.26 -> as Daniel and his generation
1035.127 -> face the huge challenges
1037.499 -> and also the huge opportunities
1039.578 -> ahead of them at this threshold moment
1043.057 -> in the history of our beautiful planet.
1046.993 -> I thank you for your attention.
1048.565 -> (Applause)
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs