Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Okay, this is what I found in a book. How cool is this? "Man's existence has occupied only a tiny fraction of earth's history. It is virtually impossible to imagine how much time has actually passed since the earth was born 5000 million years ago. Maybe this will help.
Imagine the planet's history is all condensed into a single century. On this time scale, the oldest-known rocks began to form at the beginning of year 15, and life forms like bacteria and algae appeared in the year 26. Until the 80th year, life evolved slowly as the continents drifted about and it was not until eight years ago that the very first amphibians struggled ashore. Dinosaurs were dominant just three years ago, but by the following year, they were extinct. Three weeks ago, the first man emerged in Africa, using tools and walking upright. The last Ice Age ended two hours ago, the Industrial Revolution started two minutes ago... and three seconds ago, man set foot on the moon!"