Origin Story: A Big History of Everything

“Origin Story, A Big History of Everything”, by David Christian, 2018 By any measure the last 75 years, in my lifetime, have seen the largest explosion of knowledge in Human history. For millennia humans have sought the wisdom of the gods; How the universe and humans came to be. I feel very fortunate to have witnessed this epochal achievement. Working as an engineer at the Cape I witnessed the first Pioneer spacecrafts and Apollo moon missions blast off. I sort of realized at the time that we were entering a new age of exploration and technological innovation, but I could have never imagined the discoveries yet to come; Billions of Galaxies discovered by the Hubble Space telescope, Black holes, Gravity waves, Robot vehicles roving on Mars, super computers in phones or the unlocking of the genetic blueprint of life. Almost every field from Astrophysics Physics, Quantum mechanics, Biology, Neurobiology, Genetics, Geology to Paleontology and Paleoanthropology has seen groundbreaking discoveries that have changed our understanding of the universe and our place in it. Now comes an amazing new book that weaves this knowledge into a surprisingly readable 300-page narrative story of the universe for the last 13 billion years. Up till now to attain this updated knowledge you would have to read separate books or take separate courses in each of the above specialties. Christian takes us on an epochal journey from the first milliseconds of the big bang, the formation of atoms and elements to the structural formation of the universe. From there we are taken to the formation of chemical elements to the formation of the earth and the beginning of life in the form of single celled prokaryotes 3 billion years ago. Photosynthesis, Cyanobacteria, plate tectonics all play a role in making our planet unique in our solar system as the only place hospitable for life. Then evolve the Eukaryotes through a combining of more primitive cells to form a new type of oxygen breathing cell, which make all multicellular animals and us possible. With the evolution of large bodied animals comes the evolution of large brains and consciousness. With the appearance of humans comes sharing and generational transmission of information and technologies. This ability proves crucial to the development of globe changing events such as agriculture and the scientific revolution. Along the way to us there were all sorts of blind alleys, near miss encounters and apocalyptic disaster scenarios that didn’t completely play out just by good luck and serendipity. One such occurrence caused by volcanism, happened 70,000 years ago and brought the number of our species to just 10,000 individuals and almost to the brink of extinction. This makes our life and all life on earth as we see it now a miraculous and beautiful occurrence. In a sense this book while conveying the history of the universe and human societies always emphasizes throughout the fact that energy flows, the laws of thermodynamics are the fundamental factors operating in the physical universe, biological systems and human civilizations. We learn “wealth never really consists of things; it consists of control over energy flows that make, move, mine and transform things”. Agrarian societies and empires could never bring wealth to a majority of the population because they could never produce enough surplus energy. They could only concentrate wealth in an elite ruling class of perhaps 10%-15% of the population. The discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels in the last 200 years, which are nothing more than reservoirs of ancient sunlight, has engendered a huge explosion in the energy, wealth available to human societies and made possible the almost sevenfold explosion of human population, middle classes and advanced western civilization. However, we learn here that the earth has undergone numerous mass extinctions caused by CO2 induced global warming, the last catastrophic one, over 50 million years ago called the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum that wiped out over 50% of all genera on earth. That event was caused by a huge explosion of volcanism emitted CO2. By burning fossil fuels and emitting huge quantities of CO2 in the same manner, are we at the beginning of just such an event? Christian emphasizes that we have reached a critical point in the evolution of life on earth where one species, us, now control the fate of our entire ecosystem. We can put into play our knowledge of how the universe works that we have assiduously garnered over the last several hundred years or we can ignore what we know, instead let greed and tribalism reign and plunge our planet into an unknown future of chaos and destruction where our very survival will be at risk. This must be one of the great turning points in history like the invention of agriculture or the discovery of fossil fuels where mankind has no choice but to utilize his innovative abilities and technologies to harness the sun’s energies directly. I don’t think I have ever encountered a book with more knowledge condensed into one place in such a readable form. You want wisdom and perspective? Read this! JACK

An overview of everything, from soup to nuts. A bit glib in some places, but overall a worthwhile read. Compare to Bill Bryson’s version. Recommended

I was surprised that the author looked at the origin of the universe, the earth, life and evolution in a different sense. He discussed it in terms of energy and paying an entropy tax. For example, maximum entropy is where everything is ultimately heading. Maximum entropy can be though of as maximum randomness, like gas molecules in a bottle. It is also the least order. Life goes against everything going downhill. It does so by taking energy, directly or indirectly from the sun; but a tax is paid for the right to have order instead of chaos. The author explains this, though, not in a dull way but in an interesting way. The writing is well done and well researched. If you think this might be just a rehash of the big bang, exploding stars, the formation of the solar system and earth, and the origin of life and its evolution as is covered in many other books, be expected to be surprised. This author approaches it from a different angle and makes it interesting.

This is a great read! You certainly won’t get through it in one sitting, but it is worth the time. I love reading science books, so this was an easy, entertaining book from that perspective. But this is a history book as well. A big-history book. It kept my attention for the majority of the time and I learned a lot, but I confess to skimming through a bit of the pre-farming history. I may revisit that later. The last part of the book discusses possible human species futures - the good and bad anthropocene. Two promising documents are referenced - one from the United Nations. The other being the Paris Agreement. Of course, every reputable scientist today recognizes the tragedies of Trump. That’s my obvious comment as this author rightfully keeps his political and religious views out of the book. I highly recommend this book to those who appreciate the scale of the cosmos and our very small part in its grand scheme.

I was really hoping this book would be more interesting, but my end opinion of it is it was somewhat boring and uneven. I did find parts of it to be very interesting, and I definitely learned many things along the way, thus the 3-star rating, but it just wasn't the page-turner I hoped for it to be. Understandably the author of a big history of "everything" has to be sensitive to which historical topics to include, which to exclude, which to briefly cover, and which to cover in deep detail. That said, I felt like the author often did a poor job of this. A good example is there is almost zero in the book about how human language developed/evolved/splintered, yet there were pages upon pages upon pages of detailed chemistry during the account of how exactly a star is formed. In my opinion that's not the proper ratio. Even within the topic of science there were imbalances, and there seemed to be a general preference towards deep-dive topics (how molecules interact with each other) versus big picture stuff (such as topics that weren't even given a single sentence like the invention/discovery of calculus or the development of the scientific method). I also didn't really care for the author's use of analogy, including his oft-repeated "entropy tax" paradigm which didn't really work for me for whatever reason, although admittedly this is squarely in the nitpick category. Lastly I will say that I came away feeling like the author had two goals when he started writing this book, and then worked backwards to fulfill those goals. His first goal seemed to be to replace religious origin stories with a scientific one (big bang etc.). And his second goal was to put out a stern warning about climate change. By the way I'm not arguing that either of those are bad goals--in fact I think both are reasonable objectives. But what it felt like to me is the author had a thoroughly considered beginning to the book (origin story) and a thoroughly considered ending to the book (warning of climate change), and then had to work backwards to try and fill in the middle of the book with "everything else". But the middle seemed to fall victim to this as it often slogged on as the author didn't seem to be as personally inspired by the topics and by finding the right balance within them. I could be misreading that but that was my take. Anyhow, OK book, I can't say I'd recommend it but if you read it you will definitely learn things and gain a new perspective on historical timelines.

My son loved this. He reads alot of different things

I think that If even 15% of the world’s citizens read this book, it would revolutionize our economics, politics, and global cooperation. The reason is simple: every human being is part of one all-encompassing history and one grand narrative, and one essential modern project: constructing a globally differentiated, sustainable celebration of civilization. Contrary to all the current Trumpites and all the would be Trumpkins of the world, in the long run it is not us against them. We somehow must learn to cooperate globally. Too grandiose? Not if you read this book. Christian starts his big history with the big bang and ends it with pervasive heat death billions of years in the future. He shows how we as human beings fit into this vast caravan. I omit most of what is important in Christian’s book to focus on three areas. 1. I want to site some fun facts from the book. 2. Why Big History should supplant the sacred scriptures of the world religions. 3. My critique of Christian’s uncritical acceptance of reigning Big Bang cosmological ideas. Let’s start with 1: fun facts. On page 77 we find out that the average human puts out about as much energy as a 100-watt bulb. I now see why hundreds of people in a small room will heat that room up. I also wonder what we are doing with all that energy. I am amazed that I myself am the unbelievably complex cellular machinery necessary to produce that energy every single day my entire life. On page 119 Christian talks about snowball earth. There was a time when the earth froze over. There was no liquid water on the surface. Everything was one vast field of snow and ice. Only the slumbering power of vulcanism saved us from a total and eternal deep freeze. One page 209 we find a discussion of human numbers on planet earth: 3000 BC 20 million 100 AD 200 million I admit 200 million seems like a lot of people, but we now have 7 billion. Can this huge number of people continue? Is such a number sustainable? On page 214 Christian discusses the rise of farming societies. He states that even though agrarian societies produced more food, the are inherently unjust, and always exploit the poor. That 7000-year history of exploitation is a legacy we are still trying to work our way out of. Can we? In 1850 (give or take a few years) England produced 20% of world GDP. It was the juggernaut of the industrial revolution and had a world-wide empire. Today England produces a little over 4% of world GDP. Take away: history, especially economic history changes fast, which can be good, but also very bad. In summarizing the near-term human future, Christian gives us good and bad news. The bad news is that governments around the world continue to pursue selfish and globally destructive military and economic policies that threaten our common future. The good news is that we, as a species have an unprecedented opportunity: The move to threshold nine: the transition to a truly sustainable human civilization. 2. Why Big History should supplant the sacred scriptures of the world religions. I make the following controversial assertion: All the scriptures of the world religions are incurably provincial in the light of the big history that Christian outlines. Well, you might say the Genesis creation story is vast and epic. The Buddhist creation myths or the Hindu cosmology call for billions or even trillions of years of cosmic history. However true any of that is, all these scriptures are fatally deficient in the details of that cosmic history. They are incurably ignorant of the details of the eight thresholds that Christian outlines. If my criticism is accurate, then we would do better to venerate, or respect or even worship the truths that lie in Big History, more than the traditions embodied in the scriptures of the world realigns. 3. Christian’s uncritical acceptance of reigning Big Bang cosmological ideas. At the very beginning of his book (p. 4) and at the very end (p. 304) Christian states as fact that the entire cosmos: humans, earth, and everything else will fade away into total heat death where nothing in the entire cosmos will happen, and where the universe arrives at a stage of zero creativity- due to the universal and unavoidable power of entropy. Such an assertion mars Christian’s overall careful analysis and thoughtful use of the latest science. The fact of the matter is that scientists in general, and cosmologists and physicists, have no clue about what happened before the big bang, what caused the big bang, or even why there was a big bang at all. And yet these same people want us to believe that even though they are totally ignorant about the beginning of the universe they can tells us with certainty what the ultimate destiny of the cosmos will be. These are the same scientists who argue for dark energy but have no idea what it is. These are the same people who insist on dark matter but have no clue about what it is. So, when it comes to ‘certainty’ about such vast topics as the fate of the entire universe, a little causal modesty is in order. Rather than ascribing cosmic preeminence to entropy, it seems more likely that the universe is endlessly creative. While we may not see a creative future based on our current understanding of the laws of nature, perhaps there are cosmic surprises in store. I will go further and suggest that ‘laws of nature’ are just one way that humans seek understand the world- and may or may not accurately describe nature as it so amazingly happens to be. If we really believe that entropy is the final word about creation, then we subscribe to a nihilistic interpretation of only the very small slice nature that we currently understand. The idea of the assured triumph of cosmic entropy is less a scientifically grounded idea, than it is a metaphysical bias. It sounds strange to say this, but when it comes to cosmology the now dominant ideas seem to be closer to philosophy than they are to casual modesty when they read the facts of nature. The best science and the best scientists know that no theory is ever ‘final.’

A very enjoyable and informative read. Purchased from a library as "used" on Amazon. The book was basically brand new and delivered in a very timely fashion, I enjoy highlighting and make notes in texts (like college 50 years ago) - so I really appreciate being able to buy good hardback versions of popular non-fiction so I can annotate them and use them as reference books later.

Modern story in scientific way. Beyond my imagination. Author has come up with lots of reference and studies. Worth a read to understand where we all started.

La narración es muy buena y en serio parece que tomas un viaje desde el origen de todo. Te ayuda a tener una perspectiva diferente en cuanto a la vida y el origen de las cosas, disfrute mucho la lectura

I came across this book while checking Gates' Notes. The idea of the book really appealled to me because it was the history of the mankind as a whole and not about single countries or single events. Also, mankind is not the protagonist, since it shows up late in the book, with the universe and planet earth being there most of the time. The writing is very good and concise, since it can discuss about relatively complex topics (ranging from astronomy to geology and antropology) in a manner that we can easily assimilate. Definetely recommend this one, a great new point of view about ourselves and our relation with our planet and the universe.

Eccezionale capacità divulgativa dell'autore che rende la lettura avvincente come un romanzo, il romanzo della vita sulla Terra.

Most history books focus on recent events, military campaigns, kings and queens or political events. They also tend to focus only on events in the last 10,000 years or so. And most focus on events much more recently than that. What I loved about this book is that it starts with the moment the whole universe could be contained in a size less than the dot that finishes this sentence that began with all the light to the energy we needed to form a universe. The moment we now call the Big Bang occurred over 13 billion years ago. It uses this moment as the first threshold to explain the history of the origin of earth and moves through nine more thresholds to tell the story of how we got to here, right now. From this moment, it explains 4 forces including gravity, electromagnetic energy, and quantum mechanics that explain how everything comes together through simple laws of nature. But then explains how atoms work which then come together to form planets. And then 4 1/2 billion years ago, in a swirling dust cloud that formed our sun, shortly after all the planets of our solar system were born and we had the planet Earth. Then from planets and rocks, it then moves through life and mass extinctions (we’ve had at least 5 we know of - the last being the one to wipe out most of the dinosaurs [we still have some relatives of dinosaurs such as birds and chickens]). When it gets to Homo sapiens there is an Interesting moment when the human population was down to just a few ten thousand humans (enough to fill a moderate sized sports stadium) about 70,000 years ago. Our species came close to extinction, possible due to catastrophe that may have been triggered by a massive volcanic eruption on Mount Toba in Indonesia that pumped clouds of soot into the atmosphere, blocking photosynthesis for months or years and endangering many species. We survived and we now have 7.7billion people on the planet. However, all other species of upright ape have also become extinct. The threshold including timelines from billions of years and transformed into a 13 year time frame line to help us get an idea of the deep time is as follows (I always love using my arm to explain to people how much I would need to delete to wipe out the entire existence of humans who ever existed on this planet – it’s literally one swipe at a nail file across the nail of a finger of an outstretched arm or the removal of one layer of paint off the top of the Eiffel Tower): THRESHOLD 1: Big bang: origin of our universe 13.8 billion years ago - 13 years, 8 months ago THRESHOLD 2: The first stars begin to glow 13.2 (?) billion years ago - 13 years, 2 months ago THRESHOLD 3: New elements forged in dying large stars Continuously from threshold 2 to the present day THRESHOLD 4: Our sun and solar system form 4.5 billion years ago - 4 years, 6 months ago THRESHOLD 5: Earliest life on Earth 3.8 billion years ago - 3 years, 9 months ago The first large organisms on Earth 600 million years ago - 7 months ago An asteroid wipes oiit the dinosaurs 65 million years ago - 24 days ago The hominin lineage splits from the chimp lineage 7 million years ago - 2.5 days ago Homo erectus 2 million years ago - 17 hours ago THRESHOLD 6; First evidence of our species, Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago - 100 minutes ago THRESHOLD 7: End of last ice age, beginning of Holoceine, earliest signs of farming 10,000 years ago - 5 minutes ago First evidence of cities, states, agrarian civilizations 5,000 years ago - 2.5 minutes ago Roman and Han Empires flourish 2,000 years ago - 1 minute ago World zones begin to be linked together 500 years ago - 15 seconds ago THRESHOLD 8: Fossilfuels revoliition begins 200 years ago - 6 seconds ago The Great Acceleration; humans land on the moon 50 years ago - 1.5 seconds ago THRESHOLD 9 (?): The Future A sustainable world order? 100 years in the future? - 3 seconds to go The sun dies 4.5 billion years in the future - 4 years, 6 months to go When it moves to the future, understanding the laws of nature to say what will happen to our planet and sun are easy to foretell. The mystery however, regarding the future, is it in the complexity and mystery of the nature of man. That is a much more difficult future to foretell. This is a wonderful book, and I look forward to thinking about this book a lot.