Big History: Engaging the New Narrative of Science

'In brief, our omnicentric universe began as something like infinite heat, infinite density, and total symmetry. This universe expanded and evolved into more differentiated and complex structures -- forces, quarks, hydrogen, helium, galaxies, stars, heavier elements and planetary systems. Some 3.5 billion years ago, in a small second- or third-generation solar system, the intricate processes called "life" began on at least one small planet. Animate matter-energy on Earth presented itself as a marvelous new intensification of the creative dynamic at work in the universe. Then some 2 million years ago, as if yesterday in the enormous timescales of the universe, proto-humans emerged on the savanna of Africa with enormously heightened capacities for conscious self-reflection, language, and tool making. Ten thousand years ago, agriculture began, and with it growing populations of humans living in ever larger and more complex societies. This unfolding leads us all the way to today, 7 billion of us collectively transforming the planet and ourselves.'

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