u1-notebook-what is big history

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WHAT IS BIGHISTORY?NOTEBOOK

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WHAT IS BIGHISTORY?A GUIDE TOTHE MAIN TALK


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What is big history?

Big history puts forward one large story that helps explain how everything got

to be the way it is, where we fit in, and where this may lead. In this lecture

David Christian explains big history, the scale of its 13.7 billion year time-

line, the many approaches to knowledge it involves, and how it fits within a

long-running human tradition of creating origin stories. After reading the text

below and watching the video lecture, you should be able to define big history,

identify what makes it challenging, and explain why its worth the trouble.

Key questions

1 What is big history?

2 Why should you care?


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Notes & questions for thinking

How would you describe Earth and the Universe?

0:00-1:03

Transcript

Earth is the place we humans call home. Its a very

beautiful place with staggering variety: gorgeous

landscapes from mountains to rivers to oceans; a

staggering variety of different species from red-

woods to swallows to beavers to spiders; and, of

course, 7 billion other humans like you and me

perhaps the weirdest species of them all.

Look above us and we see the Sun, the battery

of life on Earth. Its one of 100 billion stars in our

galaxy, the Milky Way; and the Milky Way is just one

of 100200 billion galaxies in the Universe.

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1:04-2:05BIG QUESTIONS

APPROACHES TO

KNOWLEDGE

So, how did things get to be the way they are? How

was the Universe created? Why does it work the

way it does? Why are stars so big? Why are you

and I so small? Why do we find ourselves in this

particular part of the Universe, on this tiny planet

buzzing with life? Why are humans so powerful?

What does it mean to be human?

These are wonderful questions and they have been

asked by people in all societies. They have also

been asked by a lot of people with great expertise:

geologists ask them; biologists ask them; astrono-

mers, physicists, historians, and anthropologists

ask them.

What we want to do in this course is to take the

expert answers and try to blend them into a single

coherent story that will explain how everythingcame to be the way it is, how we fit in, and where,

perhaps, everything is going.

Many different kinds of people work to improve our understanding of the Uni-

verse, life, and humanity. How might different approaches vary? For example,

how do your history teacher and science teacher come at similar problems

from different perspectives?

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2:06-3:14 These questions fascinated me even when I was akid because they made me feel I was part of some-

thing absolutely huge and quite wondrous. I wanted

to know more about it.

I remember buying a telescope in a junk shop. I set

it up in England, in our backyard, and I started look-ing at the stars. Suddenly, everywhere I looked, I

was seeing double stars. I thought Id discovered

something brand new. I told a friend who looked

skeptical and asked me where I got the telescope.

I realized what had gone wrong: you dont buy a

telescope in a junk shop. A telescope needs to be

very precisely made if youre going to see the skies

properly. Nevertheless, I still managed to see some

magical things even with that clunky telescope. For

example, I saw Saturn with its rings, looking like

metal washers around a bright, shiny ball bearing.It was very beautiful indeed.

So what I learned from this was that these are

great questions, there are great answers to them,

and asking them can take you on a complicated,

long, wondrous journey.

When you stare at the night sky, what comes to mind?

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3:15-4:04TIMELINE

Take a look at this timeline.

It shows you my own journey through time. What

Ive done is placed on it events that seem important

in my own life. We can think of them as thresholds,

or crucial turning points in my life.

For example, at the age of 3 months I traveled to

Nigeria. I went to Canada, where I met my wife. I

went to university to train as a Russian historian and

I got my first job in Australia. All of those things

were important.

Now, I carry three passports because Ive traveled

so much. And the trouble is, Im not really sure

what country I belong to or who I am. I was never

really content just to learn or teach the history of

one country. (Russia, in my case.)

When you think about your own life, what are a few of the most important

moments?

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4:05-4:46BIG QUESTIONS

ABOUT HUMAN

EXISTENCE

I wanted to know the history of humanity as a

whole. That question forced me back. If you want

to know about humanity, you have to ask about how

humans evolved from primates. You could push

that back and ask about how primates evolved.

Back and back and back until, eventually, talk-

ing about the origins of life on Earth. Once youre

doing that, why not ask about the origin of Earth

and the whole Universe.

Now, these questions are huge but seemed really

important to me because asking them gave me a

sense of what I am and what it is I am a part of.

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4:47-5:50ORIGIN STORIES

A MODERN

SCIENTIFIC ORIGIN

STORY

I realized that all human societies have asked these

same questions, I think for the same reason I did,

but their answers are very diverse. Some say the

Universe appeared very recently; others that its

always been there. Some say it was created by

God or a whole group of gods; others say it just

appeared out of a sort of cosmic mush.

And each of these stories then goes on to explain

the origins of the stars, the Sun and Moon, the

mountains and seas, the plants, the animals, and, of

course, you and me.

Big history is a modern version of all these stories.

Its based on the best knowledge available in our

society, but of course its not perfect. New infor-

mation keeps appearing, and as a result, we have

to keep adjusting the story and improving it. Thereare many areas to which we dont have perfect

answers were really not sure. So, the story

keeps changing in small ways and that, frankly, is

one of the things that make it so exciting.

Are you familiar with any origin stories? Which ones? What do all origin stories

have in common according to this lecture? What makes big history different

from other origin stories?

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5:51-6:52SCALE

Now, youve seen my personal timeline. You can

think of it as a sort of personal origin story and

you can all write timelines of your own. To some

of you it may seem pretty long, but if you want to

look for a long timeline, think about the history of

the Universes that timeline is 13.7 billion years

long! Take time out to get your mind around that

figure. If you were to count numbers, each number

a second, and you counted up to a mil lion, how long

would it take you? It would take you about 11.5 days.

To count to a billion it would take you 1000 times

as long, about 32 years. And to count to 13.7 billion

years would take you over 438 years to count.

Thats a huge story, but thats the story were going

to tell in this course.

If you drew a 13.7-billion-year timeline the length of a football field or the hall

at your school, what portion would represent one year? One hundred years?

How could zooming out and zooming in help your understanding of an event in

your life or in history?

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6:53-7:53THRESHOLDS

OF COMPLEXITY

Its a fantastic story. Its got lots of twists and turns,

lots of unanswered questions, lots of fascinating

ideas and stories in it.

One of the things were really going to focus on is

the idea of increasing complexity. Over 13.7 billion

years, what we see is that gradually there appear

in the Universe at what well call threshold

moments new things, more complex things with

entirely new qualities. Ill focus on eight of these

thresholds, and they culminate in todays world.

The last threshold is todays world, and that is one

of the most complex things we know.

By the end of this course, you will have surveyed

the whole history of the Universe and youll know

where you fit in.

So, lets get started.

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Key questions

1 What is big history?

2 Why should you care?

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