Yesterday, I came across this spoken word montage titled "MAN vs EARTH", by poet Prince Ea, in which he drops some "fun facts" about our favorite ball of blue and green. He mentions that the Earth has existed for four and a half billion years, while humankind has only been around one hundred and forty thousand years. He then puts those numbers into perspective, framing them to give us one very interesting statistic: if the Earth's lifespan was condensed into 24 hours, then we would have lived on it for all of... 3 seconds.
Boom.
I would assume that this information was derived by condensing the years that the Earth and humankind have existed, while maintaining the ratio. Prince Ea succeeds in communicating the data in a way that has more impact, using measurements of time everyone understands (for example: not everyone can properly conceptualize just how long 4,500,000,000 years is).
It was sobering to be presented this data in such a comprehensible way (I say this because I deal with hours, minutes, and seconds, on a daily basis). Humans have had such an incredibly detrimental effect on the planet despite the short time we've been alive (just three seconds!?). We suck.
Damn, Karl. This reminds me of Wendy Newman's stress on using statistics to make measurements. Mrs. Newman stresses the importance of scientific method to discuss impact. There is a crucial difference between a statistic and a measurement. A measurement is two or more statistics that proves something. Measurements are used to make an impact. Statistics cannot work alone to make something matter. This video perfectly exemplifies this idea.
ReplyDeleteI've seen this kind of thing a few different places - try googling "history of earth in 24 hours" or similar. It's kind of terrifying!
ReplyDeletehttps://flowingdata.com/2012/10/09/history-of-earth-in-24-hour-clock/
Stephanie A
Thank you for sharing this spoken word. Definitely a hit of perspective - it's so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and forget that we exist in a world that's been around, and hopefully will be around, so much longer than us. It' s humbling to remember that we are tiny pieces of part of a much, much larger puzzle.
ReplyDeleteOops I deleted my comment! Here it is:
ReplyDeleteYo Karl! I highly recommend the TV series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. It is a mind-stimulating show (hosted by astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson) that recounts the history of the universe and humanity's greatest achievements. Similar to Prince Ea, The show uses a recurring visualization/metaphor of a gorgeous cosmic calender to help viewers conceptualize our relative infancy.
Here's a pic! I can't embed it in the comment box :(
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2014/03/3QTR-Wide-Shot-101_062_030-R2_V1.jpg
That video was really well done! Thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDelete