T = 0 (13.7 BYA)

“the big bang”

The planck epoch

Maybe a singularity, maybe not

maybe a period of cosmic inflation prior to regular expansion. This part is all hypothetical based on how we balance out current equations

if universe started as singularity, a period of special cosmic inflation is hypothesized as necessary order to explain the uniformity of the visible universe

All fundamental forces unified as one

We can’t really understand this moment until we have a working theory of quantum gravity

T = 10^-43 seconds

The grand unification epoch

Gravity separated from the other forces

T = 10^-36 seconds

The electroweak epoch

Strong nuclear force separates from other fundamental forces

T = 10^-34 seconds

End of special cosmic inflation, if it happened. beginning of regular espansion / what we can explain with current theories, though we haven’t reached what’s reproducible in a particle accelerator yet

~T = 10^-32 seconds

Universe reached temperatures required for the production of a quark-gluon plasma, as well as other elementary particles.

Particle-antiparticle pairs continuously produced and destroyed

At some point, an unknown process violates the conservation of baryon number, leading to a small excess of quarks and leptons over antiquarks and antileptons, resulting in predominance of matter over antimatter

T = 10^-12 seconds

Electromagnetic and weak nuclear force separate, all fundamental forces and parameters of elementary particles are in their present form

Fundamental particles / forces:

Gravity

Standard Model Fields

Fermions (= antimatter forms)

Quarks

up

down

strange

charm

top

bottom

Leptons

electrons

muon

tau

electron neutrinos

muon neutrinos

tau neutrinos

Gauge Bosons

Photons / Electromagnetic force

Gluon / Strong nuclear force

Z + W / Weak nuclear force / beta decay / radioactivity

Scalar Boson: Higgs / mass giving

T = 10^-6 seconds

(less speculative from this point forward, since particle energies drop to levels reproducible in particle accelerators)

quarks and gluons combine into baryons:

uud quark combos into protons

ddu quark combos into neutrons

mass annihilation of most particles and all antiparticles

T = 1 second

mass annihilation of most electrons and all positrons

after annihilations, protons, neutrons, and electrons no longer moving relativistically - energy density of the universe is now mostly photons

T = a few minutes

neutrons combine with protons to form deuterium and helium nuclei, in addition to uncombined protons (hydrogen nuclei). Possibly a bit of lithium nuclei

elements are defined by the number of protons in a nucleus

still too hot for the electromagnetic force to bind electrons to nuclei, early universe remains a hot, opaque plasma

The milky way begins as one or several small overdensities in the universe

T = ~ 378,000 YEARS

“recombination”

universe is cool enough for the electromagnetic force to bind electrons to nuclei to create electrically-neutral atoms, photons are able to free stream, universe becomes transparent (cosmic microwave background / relic radiation).

an element gains a neutral electric charge when the number of protons = number of electrons

Note: orange glow would fade at the rate of combination; event though CMB was less red-shifted at the time, it would still already by outside of the visible spectrum, so no persistent glow coming from the final photon release

Gas forms into galaxies under the gravity of dark matter

Gas inside of galaxies collapses into solar systems

Early stars die, creating and spreading heavier elements

~11 BILLION YEARS AGO

The milky way merges with another large galaxy, known as the kraken

~4.6 BILLION YEARS AGO

a cloud of gas in the milky way collapses to form the sun, remaining dust starts to clump together

~4.5 BILLION YEARS AGO

earth pretty much formed

another mars-sized planet crashes into earth, forming the moon

the hadean epoch lasts ~.5 billion years

constant bombardment

Earliest water + many, if not all building blocks of life brought to earth by comets, meteorites, etc

origin of natural selection. one theory - different combinations of rna connect and break apart - initially selecting for stronger, more stable bonds, and longer chains. longer chains increase probability of an autocatalytic set emerging stochastically

a population of autocatalytic rna enzymes was shown to ultimately yield and then be dominated by recombinant replicators

beneficial cooperation between rna chains may have paved the way for the protocell (like a multicellular development, one layer down)

single-celled life

LUCA

molecule = combinations of atoms

molecules important to life:

proteins / amino acids

ribose / ribonucleic acide (RNA)

deoxyribose / deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)

lipids

~4 BILLION YEARS AGO

Late heavy bombardment

~4 BILLION YEARS AGO - ~2.5 BILLION YEARS AGO

The archean epoch

Photosynthesis

Earliest oxygen

~2.5 BILLION YEARS AGO - ~500 MILLION YEARS AGO

The proterozoic epoch

Eukaryotes

cell nucleus

mitochondria

Sexual reproduction (assuming that didn’t emerge in rna world)

Multicellular life

Fungi

Plants

Animals

~500 MILLION YEARS AGO

The cambrian explosion, the cambrian period begins

Chordates

Vertebrates

~485 MYA - ~443 MYA

The ordovician period

~443 MYA - ~419 MYA

The silurian period

~419 MYA - ~358 MYA

The devonian period

~358 MYA - ~298 MYA

The carboniferous period

Amphibians appear - spending part of their time on land

Amniotes appear - adapted for terrestrial living

Synapsids appear

~320 MYA

Pangea forms

~298 MYA - ~251 MYA

The permian period

~251 MYA - ~201 MYA

The triassic period

Mammals appear

~201 MYA - ~145 MYA

The jurassic period

~145 MYA - ~66 MYA

The Cretaceous period

~66 MYA

The K-Pg mass extinction

~66 MYA - ~23 MYA

The Paleogene period

Primates appear

~23 MYA - ~2.5 MYA

The Neogene period

Hominids (the great apes) appear

~4.5 MYA

Australopithecus appear and split off from other great apes

Beginning of use of stone tools?

~2.8 MYA

Genus Homo splits off from Australopithecus

~2.5 MYA - ~12,000 YEARS AGO (~10,000 BCE)

The Ice Age

~300,000 YEARS AGO

Anatomically modern humans (homo sapiens) emerge in africa, splitting off from other archaic humans

Dispersal throughout Africa begins

~70,000 YEARS AGO

Arrival in arabian peninsula

~65,000 YEARS AGO

Arrival in south asia, begin dispersing along the coast and throughout oceania

~50,000 YEARS AGO

Arrival in the fertile crescent

Begin dispersing through Europe and the rest of Asia

~35,000 YEARS AGO

Arrival in Japan

~25,000 YEARS AGO

Humans arrive in the Americas and begin dispersing throughout

~15,000 BCE

Earliest evidence of humans in the Andean region

Earliest evidence of domestication of dogs

~12,000 YEARS AGO (~10,000 BCE)

The agricultural revolution (end of ice age?)

Beginnings of civilizations

Mesopotamian civilization emerges

~9000 BCE

Domestication of sheep, goats, pigs, cows

~7000 BCE

Agricultural beginnings of the mesoamerican cultures

~5000 BCE

Yangshao culture emerges

Domestication of chickens

~3,500 BCE

Caral-Supe civilization - first complex society of the Andean civilizations - emerges

Domestication of horses in asia

~3,300 BCE

Indus Valley civilization emerges

~3,100 BCE

Earliest known recorded history

Ancient egyptian civilization coalesces

Sumerians, Babylonians, ancient Nubians study angle measure, ratios, triangles, and divisions of circles

Domestication of other animals

~3,000 BCE

Although a sense of arithmetic is probably prehistoric, it’s around now that more complex and structured approaches start to appear, probably spurred on by the needs of larger more complex civilization

Longshan culture emerges

~2,000 BCE

Bronze age

Earliest recorded beginnings of geometry

~1,200 BCE

Iron age

Olmecs - first major mesoamerican civilization - emerges

~539 BCE

Fall of Babylon

~460 - ~370 BCE

Hippocrates applies idea of humors (chemical systems regulating human behavior) to medicine, suggesting they are the vital bodily fluids of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile

~450 BCE

Empedocles proposes four classical elements: earth, water, air, and fire

~424 - 348 BCE

Plato articulates an emission theory of vision, suggesting that the eyes project rays of light, illuminating things in front of them, until something blocked the eye-rays, which would be perceived as darkness

300s BCE

Eudoxus’ and Callippus’ theories of concentric spheres

Aristotle:

Theory of concentric spheres, building off of previous work by Eudoxus and Callippus. While Eudoxus and Callippus may not have believe their models to be the true nature of the universe (rather just a calculation tool), Aristotle did 

Describes two kinds of mechanics “violent motion” and “natural motion”. Rather than being based on momentum and equilibrium, an object’s natural state is to be at rest.

Theory of vision involving the separation of “form” from “matter”

Theorizes that the hazy light of the milky way in the sky was caused by an atmospheric phenomenon

~350 BCE

Aristotle adds fifth element, aether, to explain the different behavior of the heavens

140 BCE

Hipparchus proved theorems equivalent to modern trigonometry, but expressed geometrically

27 BCE

Start of the roman empire

100s CE

Ptolemy’s uses epicycles to explain the motion of planets in an earth-centric universe - geocentrism is standardized

476 CE

Fall of the western roman empire

Medieval period in europe

Medieval art very much about religion and the metaphysical, but also perhaps a rejection of rome’s self-perceived superiority, and with it its focus on rationalism

~786 - ~1258 CE

The Islamic Golden age - period of scientific, economic, and cultural flourishing

Formalization of alchemy and chemistry - including some of the earliest classifications of chemical substances

Al-Battani accurately determine’s the length of a solar year

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi wrote a revision of ptolemy’s celestial model, and developed trigonometry

Abu Bakr al-Razi identifies smallpox and measles, and recognizes fever as part of the body’s defenses, and questioned the greek idea of the four humors

al-Zahrawi pioneers surgical tools, supplies, and procedures

Study of optics - Development and improvement of lenses for magnification and improvement of vision

Ibn al-Haytham - rejected aristotelian notion and euclid/ptolemaic notions of vision, postulating that vision occurs by way of light waves forming a cone - argued that the mathematics of reflection and refraction needed to be consistent with anatomy of the eye, and was an early proponent of the scientific method

Ibn Sina builds on john philoponus’ rejection of the aristotelian view of motion, adopting idea that moving object has force which is dissipated by external agents like air resistance

825 CE

Al-Jabr is published, formalizing algebraic methods that had been around for a while but mainly used to solve specific / geometric problems, not abstract ones.

950 - 1250 CE

Medieval warm period

1300 - 1850 CE

Little ice age

1315 - 1317 CE

Great famine

1347 - 1351 CE

Black death

Along with the great famine and other political and social upheavals and revolts of the time, the “crisis of the late middle ages” is seen as the beginning of the renaissance era

Associated with desire to revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of classical antiquity

1438 CE

The Inca Empire is formed

1440s CE

Invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg

Would eventually help usher in the scientific revolution, decisively changing the way scientific thought was both recorded and disseminated

~1450 CE

Formation of the Iroquois League - North America’s first democracy

1453 CE

Fall of the eastern (byzantine) roman empire to the ottoman turks

1492 CE

Columbus arrives in the bahamas

1490 - 1527 CE

High renaissance

Focus on the human realm. Focus on realism, attention to detail, precise study of human anatomy

~1502 CE

Amerigo Vespucci publishes Mundus Novus proving Columbus had reached a new continent, not an eastern part of asia

1510 - 1520 CE

Development of mannerism - which involved expressively exaggerating features - emerges out of an anxiety amongst younger artists - a crisis that everything there is to discover has already been discovered

1517 CE

Protestant reformation begins

1527 CE

Henry VIII’s dispute with the Pope begins, leading to the English reformation

1543 CE

Copernicus formulates a helio-centric model of the universe, beginning of the “scientific revolution”

1572 CE

The Inca Empire falls to Spain

1607 CE

First permanent british settlement in america

1600 - 1750 CE

Baroque movement - exuberant detail, grandeur

Encouraged by the catholic church as a means to counter the austerity and simplicity of protestant art, architecture, and music

Rococo emerges towards the end as an even more flamboyant, natural conclusion - featuring more and more asymmetries

1609 CE

Johannes Kepler publishes evidence that, among other things, planets move in elliptical orbits

1610 CE

Galileo publishes his observations confirming, among other things, Copernicus’ helio-centric model

Also proving that the milky way consists of many stars

1620 CE

Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum is published, helping to spread the philosophy of the scientific method

1644 CE

Descartes’ book states that bodies can only act on each other. Although it required a universal medium - the aether - to work, the idea was vindicated through particle physics and interactions via bosons

1661 CE

Publication of the skeptical chemist, first publication to distinguish between chemistry and alchemy

1665 CE

Calculus is formalized independently by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, though elements of it had appeared in ancient egypt, greece, china, the middle east, medieval europe and india.

1669 CE

law of superposition proposes that in undeformed strata sequences, layers are older the further down you go

1672 CE

Isaac Newton publishes results of splitting light through a prism, revealing nature of white light as a combination of the full visible spectrum, and inventing spectroscopy

1687 CE

The publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia, expounding his lows of motion and universal gravitation

1750 CE

ability to produce phosphorous in bulk (originally discovered through attempts to turn urine to gold via alchemy)

1752 CE

Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment

1755 CE

Immanuel Kant correctly speculates that the milky way might be a rotating body of a huge number of stars held together by gravitation forces akin to the solar system but on a much larger scale

1760 CE

Beginnings of the industrial revolution

beginning of the anthropocene

1766 CE

Cavendish is first to isolate hydrogen in a lab, and recognize it as a distinct element

Also first to combine hydrogen and oxygen to form water

1750 - 1850 CE

Neoclassicism - ancient ruins found at athens and naples reignited a passion for the past - focus on symmetry and order, overlapping with age of enlightenment

1771 CE

Jérôme Lalande, using data collected from global, international expeditions to observe the transit of venus in 1761 and 1769, calculates the distance between the earth and the sun to within 2.3% of error

1775 CE

initial results from the schiehallion experiment prove newton’s inverse square law of gravity

1776 CE

Final results from schiehallion experiment calculates earth’s mass as 4,500 kg·m−3, less than 20% away from the modern value. From this, was also able to correctly surmise the earth contained a dense, metallic core, and make first calculations of the mass of other celestial bodies

George Palmer proposes a theory of visible light perception involving three photoreceptor cells, but incorrectly postulates that light itself is made up of three distinct types, as opposed to a spectrum 

American independence from Britain

1780 - 1850 CE

Romanticism - reject the order, harmony, and logic of neoclassicism

Kind of a rebellion against scientific reason in favor of subjectivity and primacy of the individual

1781 CE

William Herschel discovers Uranus and becomes court astronomer. uses his new resources to produce the first systematic map of the milky way, which comes out amoeba-shaped since he only uses number of stars in a region to estimate size, not understanding that brightness is related to distance

1789 - 1794 CE

Antoine Lavoisier contributes majorly to the chemical revolution - reforming chemistry, resulting in the law of conservation of mass, and oxygen theory of combustion

1795 CE

Hutton publishes his principles of geological change through erosion and upheaval

hutton also proposes theory of uniformitarianism - idea that the earth is shaped continuously and gradually, in opposition to catastrophism - idea that earth is shaped by sudden biblical disasters

1796 CE

cuvier is first to describe mastodon, and also puts forth a formal theory of extinctions

william smith realizes fossils could be used  to correlate ages of rocks to other sites, and makes map of britain’s strata

1797 - 1798 CE

Cavendish experiment - first experiment to accurately measure gravitational force in a lab, first to yield accurate values for the gravitational constant and get an accurate mass of the earth

1800s CE

Lyle champions geological theory of unitarianism, but with the oversights of not buying into any sudden shifts like ice ages or extinctions - aside for these setbacks, his writings shaped and influenced modern geology

American expansion

1802 CE

Thomas Young postulates existence of three types of photoreceptors with different but overlapping sensitivities 

1804 CE

Lewis and clark expedition sets out, in part hoping to disprove theories of evolution and extinctions by finding living mastodons 

1800 CE

Huge boom in discovered dino fossils across america and europe

1812 CE - 1847 CE

Mary Anning finds ichthyosaurus fossil at lime regis, and subsequently others - inc first plesiosaurs, and one of the first pterosaurs

1818 CE

Ocean liners offering regular comfortable passenger service begin operation

Mary Shelley publishes Frankinstein, inspired by contemporary notion of élan vital - a vital force which causes unalive things to become alive, and which could potentially be triggered with electricity

1827 CE

Robert Brown observes brownian motion

1828 CE

Synthetic ultramarine is invented

1840s CE

Electrical telegraph comes into use

Observations by william parsons reveal spiral structure of distant galaxies (then called nebulae)

1848 - 1900 CE

Realism - spurred on by rise of journalism, invention of photography, plus anti-romantic movement - interest in accurately capturing reality

1850 CE

Herman von Helmholtz develops theory of color vision further, describing photoreceptor cells as preferring short, medium, and long wavelengths 

1856 CE

First direct evidence for the existence of three color receptor cells

1859 CE

On the origin of species - foundation of evolutionary biology

darwin also calculates the geological processes required to form part of southern england to have taken 306,662,400 years - way older than current accepted wisdom about the age of the earth

1864 CE

James Clerk Maxwell proposes a comprehensive theory of electromagnetism - predicted couple electric and magnetic fields could travel through space as an electromagnetic wave, and that light consists of electromagnetic waves in certain wavelengths

1865 CE

Gregor Mendel’s laws of inheritance - reports that traits are inherited in a predictable manner through independent assortment and segregations (later known as genes)

1865 - 1885 CE

Impressionism - emphasis of one’s perception over nature

roughly the start of movements considered “modern art”

1885 - 1910 CE

Post-impressionism - subjective visions and symbolic meaning over observations of the outside world

1869 CE

Mendeleev publishes the periodic table of the elements

1878 CE

First hydroelectric dam

1878 - 1886 CE

Muybridge’s photographic studies of motion

1879 CE

Electric lightbulb patented

1882 CE

First coal-fired power station

1885 CE

First commercially-viable automobile

1886 CE

Westinghouse develops AC system, which could reach a larger area more efficiently

Heinrich Hertz experimental proves the existence of electromagnetic waves

1888 CE

First electric streetcar

1890 CE

First electric subway

1890 - 1910 CE

Art Nouveau

1894 CE

Birth of the kinetoscope

Birth of the radio transmitter / receiver

1895 CE

Simon Newcomb uses data from 1874 and 1882 transits of venus to refine the AU down to within 0.06% error

Discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen

1896 CE

Radioactivity discovered by Marie Curie and Henri Becquerel

1900 - 1935 CE

Fauvism - bold, intense colors decoupled from their descriptive, representational purpose - an intermediary between post-impressionism and cubism and expressionism

1905 CE

Einstein’s four papers

Photons

Special relativity - speed of light is immutable, constant, independent of observer’s motion

Equivalence between mass and energy - E=mc^2

One of Einstein’s papers presents brownian motion as a way to indirectly confirm the existence of atoms and molecules

1905 - 1920 CE

expressionism

response to conflicting worldviews and loss of spirituality, distortion of form and color to express raw emotion

1907 CE

Beginning of commercially viable color photography

1908 CE

thanks to invention of photography and spectroscopy, henrietta leavitt discovers ability to use cepheid variables as standard candles

1907 - 1914 CE

Cubism

1914 CE

Film industries established

1914 - 1918 CE

WW1

1915 CE

Einstein publishes his theory of general relativity, describing the observed effects of gravity as the warping of spacetime

1916 - 1950 CE

Surrealism - rejection of rationality as cause of ww1 and suppressing of imaginative thoughts. Influenced by karl marx and sigmund freud

1920 CE

Beginnings of commercial broadcast radio with Frank Conrad + Westinghouse setting up KDKA

Proposal that stars get their energy from nuclear fusion

1920s CE

Edwin Hubble conclusively confirms the existence of other galaxies outside of our own

Paul Dirac’s attempts to quantize the electromagnetic field result in QED - Quantum Electrodynamics, which will be further refined by others over subsequent decades, and creates the foundation of the standard model

1920s and 1930s CE

Modern synthesis - connected natural selection and popular genetics into a unified theory that included random genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow

1923 CE

16mm film introduced as a cheap alternative for amateurs

1930s CE

Neutrino postulated by Wolfgang Pauli

Cinema has become the principal form of popular entertainment

Introduction of the vinyl record

Fritz Zwicky postulates neutron stars and supernovae

Zwicky postulates about there not being enough matter to explain motion of galaxies, hence the need for dark matter

1931 CE

Big bang theory proposed by Lemaître

1932 CE

8mm film released as a cheap alternative to 16mm for home movies

1935 CE

Kodachrome goes on sale - first commercially successful integral tripack system - that is, first commercially successful color film that didn’t require a special camera for the creation of color separated negatives

AC biasing technique discovered, allowing for high-quality audio recording to magnetic tape

1938 CE

Discovery of nuclear fission

1939 - 1945 CE

WWII

1942 CE

First man-made nuclear reactor

1945 CE

World’s first nuclear explosion

1946 CE

Point at which the majority of american homes have a telephone

Proposal that stars form elements up to iron during their normal life cycle

1947 CE

Start of the cold war

Pre-recorded broadcasts via magnetic tape introduced to broadcast radio industry

1940s and 1950s CE

Discovery of hadrons

1950s CE

Television replaces radio as the dominant broadcast medium

1950s and 1960s CE

Pop art

1951 CE

Gerard Kuiper conjectures the existence of the kuiper belt

1953 CE

Building on the work of others, Watson and Crick propose the double-helix structure of DNA

1954 CE

Paper showing that elements heavier than iron created in supernovae - also solving one of the main problems with the big bang theory

1956 CE

Experimental detection of the neutrino (resulting from nuclear reactor)

1957 CE

Flights have surpassed ocean liners as the preferred means of crossing the atlantic

1961 CE

Sheldon Glashow combines electromagnetic interactions and weak interactions into standard model

1965 CE

First neutrino found in nature detected

Age of the universe estimated to be within 10-25 Billion years, but estimation of the hubble constant meant the value remained uncertain

Super-8 film released as a better-quality and easier-to-use film for home movies, designed to accommodate sound as well

1960s CE

Solar neutrino problem - homestake experiment detects only 1/3 of the neutrinos coming from the sun as expected. This conflicted with expectations because neutrinos were believed to be massless, and therefore wouldn’t change from the single kind produced by the sun, when in fact they have mass, and therefore do experience time and oscillate

Direct radar measurements of the distance to mercury and venus become available

1964 CE

Discovery of the CMB, providing observational evidence of one of the big bang theory’s predictions

1967 CE

Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam incorporate Higgs mechanism into the standard model

1968 - 1972 CE

Manned apollo missions

1970s CE

Postmodernism - skepticism, irony, and philosophical critiques

Rejection of modernism / modern art movements

Breh

1973 CE

Neutral weak currents caused by Z bosons discovered experimentally at CERN

Theory of Quantum Chromodynamics - i.e. the strong interaction - is formed and experiments confirm that hadrons are composed of fractionally charged quarks

1974 CE 

Stephen Hawking predicts Hawking radiation

1980 CE

Vera Rubin and collaborators present strong observational evidence for the presence of and amount of dark matter in galaxies

1983 CE

W± and Z0 bosons discovered experimentally at CERN

1983 CE

Birth of the internet / TCP/IP

1989 CE 

Birth of the world wide web

Invention of the blue LED (completing the RGB set)

1991 CE

End of the cold war

1992 CE

Discovery of kuiper belt objects other than pluto and charon lead to confirmation of the kuiper belt’s existence (and pluto’s reclassification)

1998 CE

Experiments begin to show that solar and atmospheric neutrinos can change flavor, resolving the solar neutrino problem and accounting for the originally measured deficit

First direct evidence of dark energy from supernova observations

1999 CE

NoCoMo launches i-Mode in Japan - considered birth of mobile phone internet services

2000s CE

Cell phones become common, social media and media streaming proliferate

Digital cameras become professionally viable

2004 CE

Voyager 1 crosses the heliosphere’s termination shock

2006 CE

Observations collected by hubble space telescope + WMAP satellite refine the age of the universe to 13.7 billion years

2010s CE

Smartphones proliferate, and eventually high-resolution cameras and media production tools become ubiquitous

2012 CE

Voyager 1 reaches the heliopause

2013 CE

Existence of the Higgs boson confirmed experimentally, completing the set for experimentally observed standard model particles

2016 CE

First detection of black hole merger via gravitation waves

2019 CE

First direct image of a black hole and its vicinity published