Telling all stories through windows of time: from the Big Bang to the origins of Earth and life to the history and future of human civilization

Welcome to this website!

A website about the Big History. We will begin here: "Why is the world the way it is?".

This section includes the meaning of great history, the "chronometric revolution" that influenced the course of the world, and some other preface content.

This part first introduces some traditional stories about the origin of the world. But we're more concerned with the origin story told by modern science, the Big Bang Model, also known as the Standard Model of Cosmology ". We introduce the development process of this theory, the relevant evidence, and the existing problems. It also includes some related knowledge, such as "cosmic ranging technology", "Doppler effect", "expanding universe" and so on.

Among them, we also introduced the theoretical physicists' detailed explanation of the origin of the world: we will start from the "singularity" to tell the process of the formation of "space-time" and the various states experienced by the universe, and continue to tell the "cosmic background radiation" "The production. This process covers the earliest 380000 years of the universe.

In this "incredible" process, energy, matter, atoms, light, and space-time itself and so on these beings, how do they appear?

There were no stars or galaxies in the early universe, and for hundreds of millions of years, the entire space-time was dark. Later, galaxies suddenly appeared, countless galaxies contain hundreds of millions of stars, the universe was lit up!

**So there is light!**

How did the universe give birth to the first galaxies?

****The stars in the universe, including our sun, are essentially releasing huge amounts of energy through "hydrogen fusion. Stars bring light to the dark universe, and they are incredibly important for life. The energy that has driven the evolution of Earth's biosphere for at least billions of years has come from the sun, even though it is a very ordinary star in the cosmic context.

Stars not only bring light to the universe, they are also closely related to the heavy elements in the universe. The early universe was very "simple", consisting of only hydrogen, helium, and a very small amount of lithium, and the heavy elements that build our bodies and all things did not exist. Stars use their strange way to create the basic elements heavier than helium for the universe, which makes life possible.

Yes, we all come from the stars!

Is human beings the only "intelligent life" in the universe? In the foreseeable future, I am afraid there will be no definite answer to this question. But in any case, human beings should be "unique" in the universe, and the existence of human civilization depends entirely on our solar system.

When we talk about the solar system, the focus of our discussion is not really the sun, but the "planetary system" that moves around the sun, which of course includes the earth. We now know that the solar system has a history, and it does not last forever.

Since the solar system has a history, how did this history, which is closely related to us, begin?

The photo in the background is called "The Ship of Life", one of the most famous photos in history. It is a group photo of all humans and the parent star.

She is suspended in the cold void of the universe, and any direction around her is an endless abyss. She alone lifted up a thin layer of biosphere, looking so lonely and brave, making us as individuals feel so beautiful but so sad.

This is our home, the only home......

It is difficult for us to imagine that the earth was once a "hell" existence. In the first few hundred million years of its formation, the entire star was in a molten state, and there could be no life. It also experienced a devastating impact, but fortunately created the moon for us.

Later, the atmosphere and oceans slowly formed, and the most primitive land began to appear. The world has become gentle, and it is ready for the emergence of life.

Whose creation are the boundless sea and towering mountains?

"On the evil! I want to know you and live a long life without failure. The mountain has no mausoleum, the river is exhausted, the winter thunder is shocking, the summer rain is snowy, heaven and earth are together, but dare to be with you."

For human civilization, which has only a few thousand years of history, this is the limit of the oath.

But such a sea is only a short moment in geological history. The oceans and mountains change roles, they are just thin paper on which nature writes its own history. Will we be the same as dinosaurs and trilobites? Is it also difficult to escape her forgotten fate and become a slowly withering "bookmark?

The horns of the mountains pierced the ocean, rising and falling from the center of the earth!

The tumbling magma has torn the earth apart, frozen into a glacier and dried up!

The world is constantly changing its appearance, and the only thing that remains unchanged,

It's a promise to you, a promise from life!

From the origin of life to the emergence of human civilization, it is a journey of about 3.8 billion years. In this long period of time, the universe has not changed much except for the scale, but several earth-shaking qualitative changes have taken place on the earth: the emergence of photosynthesis, the emergence of multicellular organisms, the repeated outbreak and extinction of species, the emergence of consciousness, and the emergence of human civilization.

If you want to tell this part of the content, it will involve many disciplines, such as biology, genetics, geology, paleoclimatology, geophysics, taxonomy, anthropology, etc., this list will be very long. The rapid development of these disciplines has actually occurred very recently, and they also constitute a major part of the history of modern science and technology. The unprecedented increase in human cognitive capacity has teased out a very clear clue to help us understand more rationally: what has happened to the world in billions of years?

Due to time and capacity constraints, there are only a few interactive diagrams in this part for the time being, and more content is still being sorted out, so stay tuned. I also hope that capable authors will join in and build a systematic, dynamic, and hierarchical knowledge system for different readership groups. This is also very exciting!

The advent of agriculture did not simply mean more food and material wealth, but permanently changed the way in which the entire human race and human society existed. It has promoted the great improvement of productivity, created conditions for the division of labor and differentiation of human society, and also promoted the generation of power. The emergence of agriculture is one of the most profound revolutionary changes in human history.

This revolution also created a material basis for a series of social evolution in the future. A pair of invisible hands began to manipulate every individual Homo sapiens. Human beings will soon enter the era of country and civilization, and no individual can be left alone.

We still live today in the afterglow of that great change.

Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt are generally considered to be the first two human civilizations to appear; this part introduces the origin of both, as well as earlier and traceable sources.

We will learn about the "Sumerians", a great group of people who made a great contribution to humanity, and even now, six thousand years later, we are still living under the influence of the Sumerian civilization. We will also learn about the Scorpion King, who opened the historical process of unifying ancient Egypt and is also a link between myth and the real world; of course, this is only a romantic description, but it has already made us deeply curious about the earliest king.

Sumer entered the heyday, there have been many bustling slavery city-states, but also opened the melee between each other. During this period, the earliest epic of mankind, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was born.

Ancient Egypt achieved its first unification around 3000 BC. The "early dynasty" began, and the Egyptian civilization that lasted for thousands of years was initially formed and began to solidify its own characteristics.

Egypt entered the "ancient kingdom period", the king became sacred, they began to pursue the "afterlife", and made a lot of preparations for this, including the most magnificent "pyramid" in history and the "ship of the past" docked on its side ". We don't know whether the huge fleet of ships sent these pharaohs to their imaginary destinations, but the pyramids remained, telling the glory of the past in the desert.

In Mesopotamia, six hundred years of endless scuffles weakened the Sumerian civilization and gave the Akkadians of the north an opportunity to take advantage of it. These Semites, under the leadership of Sargon the Great, unified the main regions of Mesopotamia for the first time and established the first so-called "empire" in human history ".

In the Indus Plain, as one of the "sources" of ancient Indian civilization, the "Haraba" civilization began to rise. This civilization was created by the "indigenous people" and is inextricably linked with Mesopotamia to the west.

In ancient Egypt, the "Pyramid Age" that lasted for half a thousand years ended, and the ancient kingdom went into decline. But the chaos did not last long. About 100 years later, Egypt "restored order" again and entered the "Middle Kingdom period".

In the two river basins, history once again staged an ancient story. The once mighty "Akkad Empire" died out. The Sumerians regained control of this land and established the "Third Dynasty of Ur": "The water in the city is full of fish, and the sky is full of birds; my city is planted with plants for bees to collect honey". But the world is unpredictable, this dynasty has become the first human civilization, the last song.

In the later land of China, the first dynasty recorded in the history books, the Xia Dynasty, appeared at that time. Compared with other early "centers of civilization" that influenced each other in Asia, Europe and Africa, ancient China in the far east seems to have developed relatively "independently.

In addition, some civilizations with far-reaching influence on later generations, such as "Phoenicia" and "Hittite", have also begun to appear on the stage of history.

The history of Mesopotamia entered the glorious "ancient Babylon" period, and the Semitic civilization completed the inheritance and replacement of the Sumerian civilization.

Ancient Egypt was torn apart by foreign invasions, but it also paved the way for the subsequent glorious imperial era.

The Aegean civilization, which was closely related to the European civilization a long time later, experienced ups and downs at this time. In the background, there were natural causes and human factors.

Around 1500 BC, the Near East was the stage for the five kingships of Egypt, Hittite, Mitanni, Babylon and Assyria. Among them, ancient Egypt became the first great empire in history to cross the intercontinental, and there were also the earliest known "monotheistic" religious ideas and many famous pharaohs, such as Tutemus III, Ehnatun, Tutankhamun, and the famous female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

In the far east, the Shang Dynasty replaced the Xia Dynasty, and ancient India also entered the "Early Vedic Period".

Due to the power conflict between the pharaohs and the priests, the "new kingdom" of ancient Egypt experienced twists and turns, but still continued the glory of the empire. The Hittites also entered their own "imperial era" and had many stories with Egypt. The Assyrian kingdom in northern Mesopotamia began to rise, and it dealt a heavy blow to the surrounding countries, including the weakened former suzerain of Mitanni, as well as the Hittites and Ghathite Babylon as great powers. On the other side of the Mediterranean, the Minoan civilization gave way to the Mycenaean civilization, officially opening the history of civilization belonging to the Greeks.

But suddenly, the story of these countries is interrupted by a mysterious force, the attack of the "Sea Nation" changes the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

In the east, the Shang Dynasty, which lasted for more than 500 years, gradually declined. Under a background full of mythology, it gave way to the rising Zhou tribe in the west. The latter established the "great unification" sub-seal mechanism, which laid the general tone of "under the Putian, is it the king's land; the shore of the land, is it the king's minister. As a member of the common people, I'm afraid it's hard for us to say, is this a blessing or a curse?

At the same time, ancient Greece entered the "dark age" before the burst of civilization, which is also the era described in Homer's Epic. In the two river basins, the Assyrian Empire will soon rise and become the main force in the Near East for hundreds of years. In the eastern Mediterranean, the commercial colonial city-states of the Phoenicians have sprung up like mushrooms, and they are about to form a network of "commercial empires" covering the Mediterranean, the Indian Aryans also began to establish a state in the tribal melee, as well as a caste system that is still deeply rooted to this day.

Compared with those civilizations that were ready to go, ancient Egypt at the same time was less fortunate. It continued to decline and would gradually be replaced by foreign forces.

In this prehistoric millennium, our world has become "smaller", and the different civilizations on the old continent are no longer simply "interconnected. These "civilizations" are like many monsters. Their tentacles begin to entangle, split, pierce, and merge, and their blood vessels begin to connect with each other. Under the background of blood and fire, a large number of great ideas that shape the social form of later generations will soon be born......

Human history has entered the eve of the so-called "Axis Age......

In the hundreds of years around the 8th century BC, the entire Near East became an Assyrian world. The powerful Assyrian Empire dominated the historical process of this period and launched a bloody and cruel war of conquest. In its surroundings, not only many countries and nations including Phoenicians and Israelis, but also the once powerful traditional power centers such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Elam were also placed under the iron hoof of the Assyrian army.

After the division of the United Kingdom of Israel, there were constant disputes between the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Jewish Kingdom in the south. Both countries were struggling to live in the cracks of the surrounding powers. Hundreds of years later, their countries would be destroyed and two thousand years would begin. The era of "diaspora. Not far from the Israelis, Egypt is still in a long "third intermediate period". Although there are occasional short-term "revival", compared with the former "imperial era", the former glory has long ceased to exist.

In sharp contrast to the ancient Egyptian civilization, which was in decline, the Greek region across the sea entered the "antique era". The colonial activities were in full swing, and the Greek city-states soon spread all over the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts. In the process, the ancient Greek civilization, which had a profound impact on the West and the whole world, began to take shape.**Of the many civilizations of the ancient world, the ancient Greek civilization was the most scientific and democratic. At that time, if we want to realize the direct democracy system of "sovereignty in the people", as one of the most important characteristics of the city-state, the small country with few people may be the only possible form.

In the East, the Indian Aryans in the subcontinent gradually got rid of the primitive state, began to establish a country and entered the period of civilization. The caste system that has influenced so far has gradually improved, and Hinduism has also begun to emerge. On the other side of Eurasia, the Western Zhou Dynasty, which lasted for nearly 300 years, gave way to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in the banter story of "the warlords of the beacon fire drama", and the capital moved from Haojing to Luoyi.