origin story a big history of everything

Then, slowly, new things appeared, beginning with stars: huge, dense, glowing balls of gas and energy that poured streams of energy into the space around them.Īs they died, stars also created new chemical elements, and in inter-galactic space these formed new types of matter such as rocks and ice and lumps of iron.

Think of a thin mist of hydrogen and helium atoms with light and energy streaming through them. The story tells how, step by step, more and more complex things appeared.Īt first it was all quite simple. What does the story tell us? It tells of a universe that appeared almost 14 billion years ago, and is still young and energetic enough to create all sorts of exotic new things from supernovae to sea slugs to smart phones. The story still has many gaps and uncertainties, but it is now detailed, rigorous and rich enough to provide us with the guidance we will need as we humans take over the task of managing planet earth. But within the disciplines, from cosmology to geology and history, so much knowledge accumulated in the twentieth century that the time has now come to construct a new, science-based origin story.

Today, we live in a world in which knowledge and teaching are so compartmentalized that we have lost confidence in our ability to see how it all fits together. You will need something like a modern, science-based origin story that can hold all knowledge together, and help you understand your place in the larger scheme of things. In fact, you will need a deeper sense of how our Universe works and what it is that we are all part of. You will also need a sense of how all that knowledge fits together, of how human actions are affecting the atmosphere and other species, and of how our planet has maintained a safe space for life over almost four billion years. That will be the life-challenge for a younger generation.īut how do you prepare to manage a planet, with its huge variety of plants and animals, of seas, winds and rocks, and a history that stretches back four billion years? Having a lot of detailed technical knowledge is not quite enough. I have been teaching big history courses for almost 30 years.Īnd I now believe they should be an essential part of modern education, particularly today, as we humans begin to understand that we now face the task of managing an entire planet.

If history can help us understand the world we live in, why not teach about the whole of history and the whole of time? That is what big history tries to do.

Origin story a big history of everything