Deep-Time Timeline Visualization

Deep-Time Timeline

Time Presets

About This App

This app is based on a paper log-scale geologic timeline I created with a friend in junior high school in the 1970s, on an adding-machine tape. We took the logarithms of the dates of all kinds of paleological events, plotted them on the 40' long tape, and hung it up in the classroom. We realized we could fit the Big Bang, dinosaurs, and what we ate for breakfast that day on the same scale! I still have that tape somewhere, and I've been wanting to create an interactive version for many many years.

The idea of a log-scaled timeline is that ancient events are compressed, and recent events take up more space. We humans are naturally oriented toward short-term thinking: tomorrow, next week, a human lifetime. This app puts that in context, so you can see how the present smoothly fades into the very deepest past.

With this app you can zoom in on any time period in the history of the universe. Significant events from politics, art, science, and nature fade in as you zoom into them. It also has a "news feed" so new events will populate in on the right edge every now and then.

For more on Deep Time thinking, check out Long Now Boston, a group I work with to promote long-term thinking about some of the biggest problems and ideas.

Of course any collection of historical events will be opinionated; I chose this set, and their significances, based on my own preferences. Since this is a completely open-source app under an MIT license, you are welcome to inspect the data and code and even make your own version.