Scale of Time

[ciphergoth]

A zooming view of all time, from the Big Bang to the Bomb. Ideas very welcome!

Comments

[purplerabbits]

By Great Leap Forward I assume you don't mean Chairman Mao's, cos that's what Google says :-)

I also had to Google Chicxulub - some more great extinctions would be nice

[purplerabbits]

It looks cool though, and slightly giddy making!

[alexmc]

If it isn't too cheeky I'd like to see the reverse too - starting with a few years and going to mega years.

It takes me a long time to figure out what your units are. Can we have a key? Can you highlight when we change units?

I prefer this way round. Your draft was horizontal rather than vertical, right?

I'd like it to be more interactive. Is that possible? If not then I can just move the youtube slider to look at differentparts of the animation.

[battlekitty]

Hmm - The pyramids of Giza seem to stand out - one or two other architectural type things like the first skyscraper or something? And maybe something to do with the discovery of germs/viruses/bacteria (I'm sure this has a proper name, but I don't know what it is)/epidemiology? Something of that sort of medical ilk, anyway.

Oh, and flight - If they're not too close together, lighter than air/heavier than air (although that is debatable within a few years and several continents, last I paid any attention - my info could be old, though) and outside atmosphere or something?

[doug]

This is the most awesome video of all time. Of all time!

[ciphergoth]

Thanks!

GLF refers to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity

[ciphergoth]

Thanks! Yes, previous draft was horizontal. I could change the colours as we go from Ga to Ma etc. Not sure there's room for a key, unless I just add events that read eg "10 Ga = 10 billion years", "500 Ma = 500 million years" etc.

Interactive is much, much harder.

[ciphergoth]

Seriously thinking about putting the list of events in a wiki or something so I can get lots of people's contributions on what should be in it. Thanks!

[doug]

Less Kanye-esqueishly, it has got me thinking all sorts of interesting thoughts about epistemology, accuracy, precision, historiography and politics. Which I hope to find time to tell you about :-)

[ciphergoth]

Heh, thanks! I missed the KW reference.

NB btw: this video should not be taken as an argument for accelerating change. The method presentation is of course chosen to fit a world of accelerating change, but the list of events has also been chosen to fit the presentation, so where things appear to close together I think about what to leave out, while where there are gaps I look for something to put in.

[alexmc]

I was thinking of a key which could be flashed up before the main animation...

[alexmc]

I hate to say this because it is MUCH more work but I think this needs illustrations to demonstrate some of the important dates

[ciphergoth]

That's part of the plan - the timing part is tricky though!

The other thing I want, and this is also tricky, is something to give a sense of scale. I could set a scale of, say, 1m=10Ma, and use something 1.375km long to show the length of the whole chart, and something .05mm long for the last 500 years. But that's much more work still, because I need to have a scale for every image.

[alexmc]

I was thinking of pictures presented in a different way. I was thinking of having pictures as large as possible with no worries about scale - but only have them on screen while the year in question is on screen.

(You'd then also highlight the year in question)

You'd only have time for a few events to be pictured, though.

Does that make sense?

[ciphergoth]

Yes, that's also what I have in mind - so there are two different kinds of pictures, one lot to do with events and the others to do with scale.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I'd change the name of that too, because "Great Leap Forward" means Mao to so many people.

Howabout "symbolic thought arises"

Edit: Other than that - awesome!

[ciphergoth]

Can't find a particularly good standout date for the germ theory of disease:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease

[battlekitty]

I see what you mean...

I'd be tempted by the Broad Street Pump incident. Or maybe Anton van Leeuwenhoek's observation of single celled organisms. Or Semmelweis and the theory of surgeons washing their hands.

Maybe even Jenner's study showing cowpox could be used to immunise against smallpox?

And now I'm REALLY going to close all the open wikipedia pages... *sigh* To prove a point: I've also read about the sinking of the HMAS Sydney, too...