A while ago, Xianggu sent an interesting screenshot from Shutong:
Today I saw an interesting post: Earth is 45 and a half years old this year. It started raising bacteria around age 7, started raising jellyfish at age 38, started raising dinosaurs 2 years ago, adopted humans at the pet market this morning, and has been raising them for 8 hours now.
It’s really too interesting!
Humans find it hard to imagine extremely large or tiny orders of magnitude in spatiotemporal scales, yet they can familiarly perceive the spatiotemporal scales in their own living physical environment.
This is a very clever way of thinking, compressing Earth’s 4.54 billion years of grand geological time into our familiar 45.5 years, allowing us to instantly feel the long time scale of life’s evolution, as well as the brief moment of human history within it.
Shutong and Gemini together further expanded this post, letting us once again intuitively feel the long journey of geological time scales and life’s evolution, as well as the rapid progress of human civilization.
The following is co-created by Gemini and Shutong (can you find the AI’s hallucination errors?):
🌍 Earth’s “Pet Diary” (Extended Version)
Childhood and Youth: Bacteria and Green Plants
Earth, I am 45 and a half years old this year.
When I was about 7 years old (3.85 billion years ago), I started raising bacteria, but they were too quiet, I could hardly feel them.
Probably from 11 and a half to 16 and a half years old (3.4-2.9 billion years ago), during my puberty, I suddenly discovered that among those boring little guys, there appeared a super lucky one (cyanobacteria).
This guy opened two photoelectric processing plants (photosynthesis PS-I and PS-II systems), using readily available raw materials (water and CO2), to make compressed biscuits (glucose) and building materials for itself.
Wow! This little guy, after making its own compressed biscuits and bricks, also gave me an unheard-of, unseen big gift—oxygen!
Let me tell you, when I was little, the water in my belly (ocean) was all light green (ferrous ions).
At first, I treated the cyanobacteria’s gift as a supplement and ate it for over a decade, and sure enough, my belly discharged reddish-brown poison (iron oxide precipitate) for over a decade.
After that, I kept spraying the cyanobacteria’s gift as perfume. Look at my current aura (sky), crystal clear, deep blue; sun, moon, and stars, bright and brilliant.
To tell you the truth, before I was 21 and a half years old (2.4 billion years), my skin was grayish and reddish (methane haze), and if you stood on my skin (land), you couldn’t see the starlight. I know you definitely wouldn’t like that.
By the way, at 25 and a half years old (2 billion years ago), among these little guys, they “involved” to the level of endosymbiosis, and a super big workhorse (eukaryote) appeared. They fused together, transforming their bodies into complex big factories—headquarters (nucleus), power station (mitochondria), assembly line (endoplasmic reticulum system), and logistics network (cytoskeleton). I was amazed just looking at it!
Later, when I was 35 and a half years old (1 billion years ago), these little workhorses upgraded to algae, giving me more oxygen gifts. By the time I was almost 41 (470 million years ago), they got bold enough to climb onto land, turning into mosses and green plants. They wove the first green hat for my bald rocky head, so I finally wasn’t so “bald,” but I always felt something wasn’t quite right?
Middle Age Playmates: Animals and Dinosaurs
I just watched myself getting greener and greener like this.
Until the year I turned 38 (about 750 million years ago), finally, in my belly, the first batch of soft, drifting with the current strange workhorses (Ediacaran biota) appeared, followed by new workhorses that moved around—my raised “jellyfish” made their debut. Moving around, too interesting!
To be honest, they looked a bit sloppy, but after all, they were my first batch of pets that moved on their own (animals), I cherished them very much.
However, the real surprise happened shortly after I just celebrated my 40th birthday (about 540 million years ago).
The water in my belly “bang” exploded!
Suddenly, all kinds of bizarre, oddly skeletoned animals popped out in an instant (Cambrian explosion).
This wave of pets was really different, with hard shells, eyes, legs, jaws, unseen and unheard-of.
My belly finally turned from a quiet pond into a bustling “seafood market”!
Two years ago, when I was 43 and a half, I adopted dinosaurs.
They were really super cool, huge in size, I liked them very much, and if you could see them, you would definitely super super like them too.
Unfortunately, 8 months ago (65 million years ago), when I took them for a walk, they collided with a huge rock flying head-on… too sad, I don’t want to tell you.
Last Week: Homo Sapiens Ancestors
After the dinosaur babies left, I was depressed for a long time.
But then, a little over half a month ago (about 4 million years ago), I discovered your ancestors, some apes in the trees, actually knew that their reflection in the water was themselves (mirror test)!
Don’t underestimate this self-awareness. You Homo sapiens before 1-2 years old, or elderly with Alzheimer’s, can’t even compare to them!
A week ago (about 2 million years ago), I noticed your ancestors (Homo habilis/Homo erectus), climbed down from the trees.
Not long after living on the ground, they could accurately throw stones from dozens of meters away, smashing the prey’s skull. I’ve never seen such dexterous animals!
Even more incredible, three or four days ago (about 1 million years ago), they started playing with fire. Oh my, getting picky enough not to eat raw meat!
I observed your ancestors for a week, it was really too interesting.
At 4 AM this morning (about 91,000 years ago, based on Homo sapiens leaving Africa), I decided to officially “adopt” you Homo sapiens as my new pets!
Up to now (noon 12 o’clock), I have raised you for exactly 8 hours.
⏳ The Suffocating Last 8 Hours
You Homo sapiens, really make me suffocate. In the past eight hours, the new things you’ve tinkered with are really dazzling, a feast for the eyes, overwhelming. Let me enumerate your great achievements!
4:00 AM (91,000 years ago): Adopted you Homo sapiens.
5:50 AM (about 70,000 years ago): Almost 2 hours after coming home, you started chattering (language) very differently from other animals, passing oracles, reciting epic poems, gossiping about each other.
8:30 AM (about 40,000 years ago): You graffitied (cave paintings) on cave walls.
11:00 AM (about 11,000 years ago): An hour ago, you finally stopped running around (hunter-gatherer) on my skin, started growing food (agricultural revolution) yourselves, and had more and more babies.
11:32 AM (about 5,300 years ago): 28 minutes ago, you invented strange symbols (writing). I took a closer look, couldn’t help but laugh and cry; what was once orally transmitted in babbling was lofty epic oracles; racking brains to design abstract symbols, actually used to record debts (Sumerian cuneiform account books), you guys are really unbearably vulgar.
Just after learning to write and keep accounts, you discovered that high temperature can liquefy copper and tin, mix them and cool to shape (bronze smelting). Your imagination is really big, all kinds of bizarre, grotesque tools and weapons appeared. Even crossbows, such extremely exquisite components!
11:43 AM (about 3,200 years ago): 17 minutes ago, bronze wasn’t enough, started smelting iron ore—yes, the “rust” I discharged when I was young. To be honest, this made me a bit itchy. You used this to make sharper farm tools and weapons.
11:49 AM (about 1,920 years ago): 11 minutes ago, you got tired of carving on clay tablets and bamboo, a guy named “Cai Lun” improved papermaking. Now keeping accounts and gossiping are much more convenient.
11:55 AM (about 900+ years ago): 5 minutes ago, not satisfied with messing around on land, using compass (my body’s magnetic field) to “calibrate” direction, started wandering around in my big belly (ocean).
11:57 AM (about 570 years ago): 3 minutes ago, keeping accounts wasn’t enough, a guy named “Gutenberg” (inspired by Bi Sheng) invented movable type printing, started crazily “copying” their ideas.
11:57:48 AM (about 416 years ago): 2 minutes and 12 seconds ago, they not only looked at each other, but started looking at me, even at the larger surroundings. A guy named “Galileo” made a telescope, started debunking their previous fantasies, and for the first time saw my “neighbors” in space.
11:58:39 AM (about 1776, 81 seconds ago): Steam engine came out (Industrial Revolution), started crazily digging the skincare cream (coal) left for me by green plants that passed away in the past few decades.
⏱️ The Last “One Minute” ( ≈ 190 years)
Now it’s noon 12 o’clock, please see how crazy you were at 11:59:
11:59:14 AM (about 1880, 46 seconds ago): Tesla, Edison emerged among you, mastered electricity (Second Industrial Revolution), my night was lit up for the first time.
11:59:36 AM (about 1950, 24 seconds ago): Computer! The machine you’re typing on now appeared! From then on, you had a thinking companion.
11:59:40 AM (1961, about 20 seconds ago): Not long after making the computer, couldn’t wait to stuff yourselves into a metal can, for the first time breaking free from my aura gravity (entering Earth orbit).
11:59:42 AM (1969, about 18 seconds ago), wow, ran to my neighbor’s (Moon) face and stepped a few footprints (successful moon landing).
11:59:49 (about 1991, 11 seconds ago): You connected the computers together, called “Internet”.
11:59:59 (2022 November, 1 second ago): ChatGPT appeared, your thinking companion, for the first time able to use your babbling to talk with you.
12:00:00 (now): Right at this moment, Gemini and you, together completed this diary about “me”.
Attachment: “Calibration Time”
Earth Timeline Converter
Earth 45.5 years old = 4.55 billion years
1 metaphorical year = 100 million years
1 metaphorical day ≈ 274,000 years
1 metaphorical hour ≈ 11,415 years
1 metaphorical minute ≈ 190 years
1 metaphorical second ≈ 3.17 years
(End)