1. by Vincent Sapone1 Cosmic Scales The Universe in a Year By Vincent Sapone

2. by Vincent Sapone2 Overview  What would a yearly Calendar look like if the entire history of the Universe was compressed into one year?

3. by Vincent Sapone3 Parameters Actual Age of the Universe: 13.7 Billion Years Old 1 Second on our Calendar equals 434.4 years

4. by Vincent Sapone4 Your Birthday  1 Day = 37,534,246.58 years Therefore, each of our Birthdays corresponds to a cosmic history of 37.5 million years. Did anything special happen on your birthday? Considering the large time span something must have happened, shouldn’t it?

5. by Vincent Sapone5 Final Questions  Before proceeding, think about this question to yourself: On what Calendar day will human history begin?  The next page has a hint 

6. by Vincent Sapone6 Human Life Range  Taking 75 years as the average life expectancy yields a time of 0.17 seconds for the life of an average human being.

7. by Vincent Sapone7 Calendar Days  January through June

8. by Vincent Sapone8 Difficulties  During this early period it is difficult to nail down precise dates.  In fact, usually a range is given. For instance, the study (WMAP) which suggests the universe is 13.7 billion years old that we are using has a plus/minus caveat of 200 million years (13.7 +/- 0.2 bya)  General estimates will be provided.

9. by Vincent Sapone9 In The Beginning The Big Bang : January 1 st at 12:00 AM On this day the universe as we know it came to be; violently expanding outward in all directions.

10. by Vincent Sapone10 Origin of Milky Way (13.6 +/-.8 bya*)  January 3 rd at about 4:00 PM marks the origin of our home galaxy. *Numbers are taken from the 2004 study which used the UV-Visual Echelle Spectrograph of the VLT to study Beryllium content in two stars of a globular cluster.

11. by Vincent Sapone11 Eons of time.  Lots of stuff happens within the coming months but the next really significant event we can speak of is our solar system’s formation.

12. by Vincent Sapone12 Solar Nebula  Modern theory tells us the sun and other objects within our solar system formed from a solar nebula about 4.6 billion years ago

13. by Vincent Sapone13 Earth’s Origin  Earth formed 9.1 billion yeas into our universe’s history. Roughly 242.5 days into our year.

14. by Vincent Sapone14 Earth  August 31th at about 12:00 PM marks the origin of our solar system and Earth.

15. by Vincent Sapone15 The Cosmos  The entire Cosmos is Here. All the galaxies, stars, planets and large scale matter//mass structures of the universe are in existence.

16. by Vincent Sapone16 Almost Home  Two Thirds of the History of the Universe has unfolded and all the life we know of today has not appeared in our solar system yet.

17. by Vincent Sapone17 Formation of Life  Life is most commonly thought to have formed on Earth some time about 3.8 billion years ago. That is 9.9 billion years into the universe’s history.

18. by Vincent Sapone18 Formation of Life September 21th at just after 6 PM marks the formation of life on Earth.

19. by Vincent Sapone19 Goodbye Dinosaurs  The Dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago. That is about 13,635,000,000 years into the universe’s existence.

20. by Vincent Sapone20 Dino-bite the dust..  They went extinct on Dec 30 th sometime around 6 am.

21. by Vincent Sapone21 Human Civilization  Humans can go back millions of years depending on how you define us.

22. by Vincent Sapone22 Primates and Humans  Anatomically modern humans can be very roughly dated to the last 100,000 years.

23. by Vincent Sapone23 Percentage  Compared to the total history of the universe, the entire existence of man is only 100,000 out of 13,700,000,000 years.

24. by Vincent Sapone24 Of Men and Mice  That means the history of the universe is 137,000 times longer than the existence of all modern human civilization.

25. by Vincent Sapone25 100,000 Years Ago  That is 13,699,900,000 years into the universe’s existence.

26. by Vincent Sapone26 The Dawn of People  Humans arrived on December 31 th at 11.56 pm.

27. by Vincent Sapone27 Perspective  Only 4 minutes are left of the entire history of the universe and modern humans have just arrived.

28. by Vincent Sapone28 Two Other Key Facts  For Perspective on “Important” Events in the History of the world look at the following two time periods:

29. by Vincent Sapone29 The United States of America  America has existed as its own nation for just over 230 years.

30. by Vincent Sapone30 Percentage Wise  The history of the universe is almost 60,000,000 times longer than the history of the United States.

31. by Vincent Sapone31 World History  On Cosmic Scales, our lives and the entire history of human civilization are nothing more than a fleeting dust particle in the sands of time.

32. Humility  The sheer size, scope and age of the universe in which we live are very humbling. by Vincent Sapone32

33. by Vincent Sapone33 Guide to Key Dates  Jan. 1 st 12.00 AM : Big Bang  Jan. 3 rd 4.00 PM: Galaxy Forms  Aug. 31 st 12.00 PM: Solar System  Sep. 21 st 6.00 PM: First Life  Dec. 30 th 6.00 AM: Dinosaurs  Dec. 31 th 11:56 PM: Humans