The World: A pocket history
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Independent Minds
A 14-part series that attempts to make simple and accessible one of the most complex subjects imaginable will be distributed via booklets given away free with The Independent and The Independent on Sunday beginning tomorrow. Starting with the origins of the Universe itself, it traces the formation of our planet, the first stirrings of life, the shaping of the continents, the evolution of species, the birth of the human race, and the millennia of history that have led up to the sophisticated but precarious civilisations of the present day.
Part science, part history – with smatterings of geology, geography, anthropology and much else besides – this is one of the most ambitious part-works you will ever read. Based on Christopher Lloyd's acclaimed book, What on Earth Happened?, it is a unique and profoundly educational compendium of facts and theories, with which anyone with aspirations to being well-informed will want to be familiar.
But it is also, no less importantly, a gripping narrative: the enthralling tale of an invisible speck of energy that exploded 13.7 billion years ago to create our universe, our planet and our infinitely complex species. It is, in short, a compelling re-telling – in chronological order – of the most extraordinary story ever told.
This booklet begins at the beginning: with the Big Bang and the chemical, geological and biological convulsions that followed it. As the series continues over the coming fortnight, so the plot gathers pace, and the story of the planet broadens. Collect them all and you will have a unique reference resource, placing in context life, the universe and just about everything else.
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Comments
Insanity, intelligence, a stumbling block, a bar?
A row of colours mingling will all turn into brown
The higher you begin to fly, the more you will go down
Insensitive to anything makes no sense at all
Except that if you're sensitive, you risk more of a fall
Why are we here, we do not know, only that we are
And what we are, how to define? the door only ajar,
Perhaps one day, light years away the door will open wide
Just like the black holes in the sky, and we'll all slip inside.
Put them out there. All I'll say is that there are few things more dangerous than a little knowledge. I noticed on the advert on the telly that the dinosaur is destroyed by a comet or meteor. The last I heard, there are a fistful at least of these dinosaur extinction ideas, including bad digestion and other far reaching concepts. It would seem rather arrogant for the Independant to decide for us 'what really happened' as though we had a CCTV recording of these events for us to be so sure about.
Seems that the booklets espouse "Big Bang" as a done deal, but it isn't and aspects of "Steady State" theory illustrate that, for instance, major questions remain unanswered (perhaps forever).
Evolution/Darwnism seems also to be a done deal, but that isn't either and the most responsible scientific position would be to say that Darwinism has opened a lot up, but we don't know the actual origin of species, e.g. Darwin's famous Galapogos finches did NOT illustrate speciation, just the adaptive potential of any species to environmental variations or, in the case of our own breeding of breeds of cattle etc., potentials inherent in any species. Jerseys and Aberdeen Angus' are not going to become different species ... nor Pekinese and Great Danes.
I think that the booklets are basically a good idea, but it's a pity that basic theories are put forward as facts, when they are not.
While the exact mechanism responsible for the Big Bang is still unresolved, as is the question of what, if anything, existed before the Big Bang, the vast majority of cosmologists and theoretical physicists are agreed that the universe began in a violent explosion. We will have to wait until we have a theory of quantum gravity, or a Theory of Everything - if we ever do - before we can work out the exact details.
However, one thing on which almost everyone is now agreed is that old-fashioned 'Steady State' theories, as popularized by Fred Hoyle and his supporters up until the 1960s, are NOT a possible explanation for the origin or large-scale structure of the universe; there is no observational evidence to support them, and a lot which contradicts them, and there is no theoretical model of the Steady State universe that is as credible and as well worked-out as the Big Bang alternatives.
So we are 99% certain that Hoyle was WRONG. The universe is NOT in a Steady State - the universe (our universe, at least - let's not get into the 'multiverse'...) DID begin with a Big Bang.
It depends which mass-extinction event you're talking about, as there have been several. But if you're talking about the most 'famous' one (at least in the public's mind), 65 million years ago, then I believe there is a pretty overwhelming consensus amongst experts that it was indeed caused by a meteorite impact near the Yucatan peninsula. This is supported by both deep seismic surveying of the seabed around the suspected impact site (which indeed reveals the structure of an ancient impact crater), and the geological evidence of shocked minerals at the K-T boundary (it is currently thought that shocked minerals of this kind, and in this quantity, can only have been generated by a catastrophic meteorite impact - recent suggestions that it could have been caused by violent volcanic eruptions have been largely disproven).
ca henry goetzelmann
kuro.goetz@sympatico.ca
'WHO' is the wrong question! It assumes that the Big Bang was 'caused' by a deliberate act of some entity exhibiting consciousness and intention. But most things that happen in nature are not the result of the intentional actions of conscious entities, so why should the Big Bang have been? (Of course, if you're religious, and believe that ALL things that happen in nature ARE the result of the intentional actions of an IMAGINARY conscious entity, called God, then you are never going to accept any alternative explanation, so why should we waste our time trying to convince you otherwise?)
'WHERE' is also a meaningless question. Conventional theories assert that, before the Big Bang, there was no spacetime, so there was no 'where' in any meaningful sense. Our spacetime was born at the same instant as the Big Bang, and expanded outwards with it. But it did not expand 'into' a larger, pre-existing spacetime - it was all the spacetime there was.
'WHAT' is the only interesting and meaningful question out of those three, and it is the one we are still trying to answer - there are several competing theories about WHAT caused the Big Bang at the present time :o)
But you missed out one 'W' - 'WHY?' This is a purely philosophical question, of course. But I like the simplest answer to this - the Big Bang happened simply because it COULD - i.e. because, in nature, as the great physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, 'Anything that is not forbidden is mandatory!'
ta fa any nifo
d
x
pst; will buy 'em all from now
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Hope that helps.
Does anyone know how to get hold of parts that I have missed?
Thanks
Would it be possible to have all these 14 booklets? It seems very interesting.
herbst@herbst-london-tours.de
Would it be possible to have all 14? They seem very interesting.
Thanks
Kind regards
gerhard herbst
herbst@herbst-london-tours.de
Thanking you for yourhelp in advance
Mrs Cate Lumby
16 Robinsin's Meadow
Ledbury
Herefordshire HR8 1SU
We live in a small village and often the inserts do not arrive with the paper - Extremely frustrating
Please reply to annie.woolston@gmail.com
However, the Moderator (or whoever monitors these comments) has not seen fit to post a response and there seems to be no obvious link on the Indy site.
PLEASE take note and someone post a response with the details - I want only No 12 that was missing this time !
This is NOT an abusive posting - just one of frustration ! BERNARD MARTIN
also, has a member of the independant ever replyed to one of these comments?
i'm 14 and therefore hardly ever enjoy reading these booklets but this series is quite interesting.
i would also like to know if you are able to collect older parts
VKROJ@aol.com