If life was one day
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If the evolution of animals was one day... (600 million years)
- From 1am to 4am, most of the modern types of animals have evolved (Cambrian explosion)
- Animals get on land a bit at 3am. Early risers! It takes them until 7am to actually breath air.
- Around noon, first octopuses show up.
- Dinosaurs arrive at 3pm, and stick around until quarter to ten.
- Humans and chimpanzees split off about fifteen minutes ago, modern humans and Neanderthals lived in the last minute, and the pyramids were built around 23:59:59.2.
In that world, if that was a Sunday:
- Saturday would have started with the introduction of sexual reproduction
- Friday would have started by introducing the nucleus to the cell
- Thursday recovering from Wednesday's catastrophe
- Wednesday photosynthesis started, and lead to a lot of oxygen which killed a lot of beings just before midnight
- Tuesday bacteria show up
- Monday first forms of life show up
- Sunday morning, planet Earth forms, pretty much at the same time as the Sun.
- Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is about a week older
- The Universe is about another week older - about 22 days.
There are several things that surprised me here.
- That dinosaurs were around for such an incredibly long time. Dinosaurs were around for seven hours, and humans for a minute.
- That life started so quickly after Earth was formed, but then took so long to get to animals.
- That the Earth and the Sun started basically at the same time.
Addendum April 27: Álvaro Ortiz, a graphic designer from Madrid, turned this text into an infographic.
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