I don’t mean to offend you, but allow me to tell you why you’re insignificant.
Time is old. Time is really, really old.
Time, to be specific, has been alive and ticking for 13.8 billion years.
It’s tough to get an accurate perception of something like the age of the universe.
Humans are bad with big numbers.
I don’t mean in a mathematical sense, we’re pretty good at that.
But rather, we’re poor at judging scale and perspective.
Have you considered, for example, that there’s a 31-year difference between a million and a billion seconds?
By the power of factors, a million seconds, being less than a fortnight
That’s two weeks for those who don’t know, may as well be discarded.
The best scientific research currently estimates that the universe is 13.8 billion years old.
But that number is so big, it doesn’t really mean anything to most of us.
To put it into perspective, Carl Sagan
An American astronomer, cosmologist, and astrophysicist
Introduced the cosmic calendar and collapsed the entire history of the universe into just a single year.
By employing this calendar metaphor, the human mind is able to approach un-human time scales
In a human format.
In his book, The Dragons of Eden, and his TV series, Cosmos,
Carl Sagan popularized a method to visualize the chronology of the universe.
It’s simple. Take its current age, 13.8 billion years
And scale it down to a single year
The Cosmic Calendar where midnight on the first of January marks the start of time
The Big Bang
And the end of the 31st of December is right now, this very moment.
The cosmic year is one to remember, here are a few highlights from it...
January first, 14 seconds past midnight: hydrogen starts to form
It’s cool enough now for electrons to combine with protons
Previously, the universe had been a hot plasma of photons, electrons, and baryons.
January 10th: the first stars ignite
For over 300 million years the universe had been dark.
January 13th: small galaxies first appear
March 15th: our galaxy, the Milky Way first appears.
End of August, start of September: our sun, the Earth, and the rest of our solar system is formed.
September 21st: first life, single-cell organisms first appear
December 5th: multi-cell organisms, almost 3 billion years after single-cell organisms are formed
December 14th: small animals appear
December 20th: land plants appear
December 25th: Welcome the dinosaurs, Merry Christmas
December 26th: mammals emerge
December 27th: birds December 28th: flowers
December 30th: dinosaurs die-that didn’t last long
8 minutes ago: humans appear
14 seconds ago: modern civilization
Every person you’ve ever heard of from here on out
5 seconds ago: Prophet Jesus 4 seconds ago: Prophet Mohammed
In the last second: modern science and technology, the American revolution
The French revolution, World War I, World War II
The Apollo Moon landing, and Donald Trump becomes President.
Your life, if you are lucky enough to live to the age of 109, is a blink of an eye
a quarter of a second. You are insignificant in the grand scheme of the cosmos.
But don’t let that get you down. You’re also extremely fortunate to have this fleeting moment in the sun.
The average ejaculate has 250 million sperm cells, and you made it buddy.
Best make the most of your day.
Carl Sagan’s Cosmic Calendar did not only help us understand the age of the Universe
In an easier way but it also helped us understand what is meant by two groups of verses in Holy Quran
Addressing the same topic, but written in a different way.
The first group of verses says: “It is He (God) who created the heavens and earth in six days”
And the other group of verses says, “He who created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six days”.
This is the Quranic cosmic calendar, revealed over 1400 years ago.
And let me explain why I believe the Holy Quran introduced the cosmic calendar approach first
Before Carl Sagan.
The answer is simple, it is because there is a great similarity
between the Holy Quran’s cosmic calendar and Carl Sagan’s cosmic calendar.
These similarities are as follows
First, by employing this calendar metaphor
The human mind is able to approach un-human time scales in a human format.
That’s why Carl Sagan popularized the cosmic calendar in the first place
And collapsed the entire history of the universe into just a single year
365 days
And the Holy Quran introduced the cosmic calendar
Then collapsed the entire history of the universe into just 6 days.
Second, Carl Sagan’s cosmic calendar tells us that the Earth was formed in End of August
Which means it was formed in the eighth month out of 12 months
Which is precisely at the point when the universe was in two thirds of its age.
Now similarly, the Holy Quran’s cosmic calendar tells us
That the Earth was formed “in 4 days out of a total of 6 days”
Being again, when the universe was exactly in two thirds of its age.
This is written in chapter 41, from verses 10 to 12
“In four days, He made in the Earth what anchors it from high above it,
And put barak in it, and equally measured out sustenance (of its dwellers) for those who ask.”
“Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke…”
And verse 12 says: “And He completed them seven heavens within two days
And He made in each heaven its affair.
And adorned the nearest heaven with lamps.”
Third, when Carl Sagan first popularized his cosmic calendar in 1996,
It spanned one year and there was no Donald Trump at that time
And when I read the cosmic calendar for you now, it also spanned one year
But this time it included Donald Trump becoming President as an example of a recent famous event
And when anyone reads Carl Sagan’s cosmic calendar after thousands of years
It will remain the duration of one year and will include future events
That are yet unknown to us now.
So here’s the kicker, this one year cosmic calendar
Doesn’t mean that the Universe is going to end in this final second of the year
The scale just continues condensing itself to accommodate the increasing age of the cosmos.
How clever Carl Sagan was
Time goes on and on but his cosmic calendar scale remains constant
At just one year.
But Sagan is not alone, because the Holy Quran did it first.
When you read the Holy Quran you will know that the Quran’s six-day cosmic calendar
Doesn’t mean that the Universe is going to end in the final second of the sixth day
The scale just continues condensing itself to accommodate the increasing age of the cosmos.
When the Holy Quran says “It is He (God) who created the heavens and earth in six days”
And in another verse says, “He who created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six days”
It is implying that what is between the heavens and the earth have not yet ended.
Every moment there is something created in between the heavens and the earth.
So now I say: how clever the Holy Quran is, time goes on and on
And still its cosmic calendar scale remains constant at just 6 days!