MY UNDERSTANDING TO THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE

-ABHISHEK SHARMA

Understanding the alluring universe is the ultimate feeling which will eventually become an innate
harmony. It was, is and always be the greatest gift to humanity.

Hi! , I’m Abhishek Sharma, an undergraduate student in physics. As soon as I glanced upon on this
course I explained it to myself “boy o boy” I have to do it. This course was legitimately one of the best
courses on big history that I have witnessed till now. David Christian explained the terms from the very
beginning “THE BIG BANG” to the ultimate future.

Starting from the get go ,the singularity, It’s a concrete mystery in a real debate. Nevertheless, it is
worth mentioning the effort of scientist, astronomers, astrophysicist, philosophers, historians, biologist
and much more that helps us to understand the fathom of this universe.

David gave the “thresholds” which helps us to get the clear time-lapse of the universe. Further the
intuition, authority, logic and evidence helps us to understand how do we even get to believe what’s
actually true and what’s not. Goldilocks condition and energy flow helps me to understand the basic
scientific process that’s happening.

Increasing complexity of the universe seems to be the most vital part of them all. So if we encapsulate
all of them, here’s what I think the universe really looks like-

1) Origin of big bang cosmology

The first is the creation of the Universe, Threshold 1, about 13.8 billion years ago. That’s a subject
normally discussed within cosmology— the moment of the big bang, and the scientific evidence that
allows us to piece together the ever-evolving story of creation.

2) The first star and galaxy

The second is the creation of the first complex objects, stars. The first stars appeared more than 12
billion years ago, quite soon after the creation of the Universe. They provide the energy and the raw
materials for later forms of complexity

3) Making chemical elements

Threshold 3 is the creation inside dying stars of the chemical elements that allowed the creation of
chemically complex entities, including planets and including you and me..

4) The solar system and the earth

The next threshold is the creation of our Earth. And what we look at in that section is the creation of
solar systems. Now, these are objects that are chemically significantly more complex than stars.
So that’s why this is a new level of complexity. Our Earth was created as a by-product of the creation of
our Sun and solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. This threshold also surveys the history of our home
planet—and we’re in the territory of geologists.

5) Life

The first evidence of life comes from about 3.8 billion years ago on this planet. Now, the
creation of life is a threshold that may also have been crossed many times, billions of times
before in other parts of the Universe, but as yet we have no firm evidence that this is true. Life,
so far, we can only study on our one planet. This threshold also surveys the evolution of our own
ancestors, the hominines, from about 6 million years ago.

6) What makes human different

By Threshold 6 we’re now just 250,000 years ago. We’ve now covered most of 13 billion years,
and we’re reaching the present moment. Threshold 6 is the creation of our own species, Homo
sapiens, about 250,000 years ago. We also cover the Paleolithic era of human history—the
oldest, the longest, but also the least well-documented part of our history. The Paleolithic era
lasts until the appearance of agriculture, 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.

7) Agriculture

Threshold 7 is the emergence of agriculture and agricultural societies from about 11,000 years
ago, and it introduces what I’ll call the Agrarian era of human history, the second of three major
eras of human history. It allowed population growth—the emergence of larger, denser, and
eventually more complex societies, including the great agrarian civilizations, such as the Roman
Empire or the great empires of China.

8) The modern revolution

And finally we come to Threshold 8, the “Modern Revolution.” This introduces the Modern era
of human history. In this part of the course we’ll cover the astonishing series of transformations
that have created today’s unified, complex world in just a few centuries, three or four centuries.

9) The possible future

Big History provides us the chance to think deeply about the place of human beings and modern
society in the larger scheme of things. It offers a clear understanding of the overall shape of what
I’m tempted to call a “modern, scientific creation story,” and an understanding of why this story
is both important and in some ways very beautiful.

Behind the fragmented vision of reality that modern educational systems offer, there is in fact
a unified account offered by modern science of reality and its evolution