The history of our world in 18 minutes - David Christian 

He was my teacher at uni ☺️

You can see he loves his job.

BIG THANK Prof Christian David for you did the BIG PROJECT to be more smaler than I could imagine by myself. What a great Job I have had from you, Sir.

DNA, the brain, and the human species is truly one of a kind. We are able, now more than ever, to engage one another in idea and thought discussion. We should strive to better our communication skills as we continue to advance our knowledge of ourselves.

What is with some of these comments? This isn't pure speculation. It's a basic summary of many of the things we've discovered about the nature of the universe.

It would be so nice, if religious people would just let the rest of the world learn peacefully, and not try to force their unscientific 'understanding' of the world down other people throat -_-

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state, Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait... The Earth began to cool, The autotrophs began to drool, Neanderthals developed tools, We built a wall (we built the pyramids), Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries, That all started with the big bang!

talk went so smoothly that my brain learned everything. yep, it's possible again.. thanks sir for such a real smooth talk. loved it..!!

your grandson is lucky to have you as a grandfather

A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of knowledge that has been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment.

Interesting how moving from elements and chemicals to life is scientifically explained as a "trick".

Thank you Professor David Christian

How I wish I could give lectures as this one ! :-)

The power of collective learning

All people should watch this

A great and timely reminder for all of us. It is not for us, but it is for the future generations ! Thank you for the wonderful and insightful talk !

I have a few thoughts... 1) From what I understand, matter entering a black hole sheds entropy and leaves it outside the black hole, so there may be complexity and future interetingness inside black holes. 2) We may develop technology for somehow leaving the universe some time in the next few billion years 3) The value of the complexity that we have is that we have it now. Similar to how as individuals we live and then die, but our lives are still valuable.

"all is one, one is all" -FMA (I think)

very interesting

I dream of a world when chickens can cross the road without their motives being questioned

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. The universe didn't just come from nothing

4:03 that was creative as well as captivating!

Great speaker (slightly ironically named for someone who believes in evolution) :) I enjoyed that video. Thank you.

He was great! I love his passion.

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state, Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started. Wait... The Earth began to cool, The autotrophs began to drool, Neanderthals developed tools, We built a wall (we built the pyramids), Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries, That all started with the big bang! BANG!

The Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" song clocks in at 17:31. Reeeeeally makes ya think... **bong noises**

You can think it's narrow all you want, it's still the correct definition.

If there was nothing, what exploded?

this vid is so underrated. makes me sad :(

It’s not that the Second Law says that complexity breaks down, but order does. The early universe was, in its simplicity, much more orderly than it is now... Also, the complexity on Earth isn’t explained by the Second Law, since it isn’t a closed system, due to energy input from the sun (and other stuff, too).

i agree especially with the last part but he was implying that even though nature seems to make things disordered somehow a complex system arises all i was saying is- this is most likely a temporary condition and even the heath death might not be the end maybe the universe will recycle itself in a new big bang ....but we persisting through stuff like that is quite far fetched

I love how painful it is for some religious people to watch this :)

conveniently skips over how complex molecules arrange themselves into an information data bank OH RIGHT BY Magic!... seriously people that is the BIG hole in this evolutionary theory

No, I refuse to be manipulated into a position that I don't have the mental capacity to rightfully occupy. I restrict myself to short outbursts of contradiction. But I do think the definition above is very narrow. What about the social and mental worlds? And you don't need expermentation in astronomy and paleontology.

The thing that is necessary for complexity is a mind with will otherwise the egg never gets scrambled.

It is like asking, “What does blue smell like?” Blue is not in the category of things that have a smell, so the question itself is flawed. In the same way, God is not in the category of things that are created or caused. God is uncaused and uncreated-He simply exists. God is the uncaused Being that caused everything else to come into existence. God is the uncreated Creator who created the universe and everything in it.

Blew my mind...

You were there 13.7 billion years ago you know how it happened? Just because everyone agrees on a common theory doesn't make it fact.

I think I gave the wrong idea. I didn't intend to make a statement. And if it will make any difference, I don't believe in god. I was actually asking a question. The question was : From where did the materials that made the Big Bang possible come from. And well talking about the reality of this universe, Check this project of mine that I submitted for Google Science Fair.

I love that song!

The Cuban Missile Crisis was instigated by the US gov't when American missiles were placed in Turkey, within range of Moscow.

ok so at one point there was nothing but darkness... how did something just appear out of nothing?? some one please answer

It was lovely

Very inspiring!

Am a Muslim, and I believe that God created everything, and yet I still believe in all the scientific assumptions he claimed in this video, but the only thing I don't is that we accumulated through time, we believe Adam and Eve were created by god, then a sin, then earth. Everything else I believe you and respect it and it sounds reasonable. but you have to ask your self, why you keep saying, It starts!! it began!! it learns!! who made. The biggest evidence i have ever encountered in my entire life that god is existed, is this video. At the beginning, there was NOTHING, then something happens!! COME ON!!

Because that is how the word is defined by the people who use it, as well as in authoritative literature. Check out the National Academy of Science's website. They will confirm that it is the actual definition. Anybody who thinks otherwise is clearly confusing the colloquial word theory with "scientific theory" which the original poster was careful to state. There's no debate, it's the correct definition.

The universe was created by God not by a big bang your here because of God and Jesus Christ.

Before the big bang there was nothing? B/S There was space?

Best Ted talk I’ve heard yet

Can anyone, please tell me , what is the meaning of threshold? Does it mean the, "beginning".

If you actually knew anything about science, you'd know in the scientific community 'theory' means 'generally excepted fact'. Science accepts that things change and are not absolute, hence the many theories and fewer laws.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This is just a couple of interesting theories of how He did it!

Almost believed this if it weren't for the infinitely more believable introduction--the second law of thermodynamics.

thanks

if every stable molecular structure in my body was not contained within myself there would be a possibility of 7*10^24 more possible micro-states for the atoms/molecules to take every single second. the idea that the existence of humans results in more possible entropic states than there would be without them is ridiculous. EDIT; I've made indirect comments about evolution. This is my direct comment, if we are to agree that it happened, we must also agree on that the probability of it actually occurring is so insane, it is in almost every sense (other than religious of course) a "miracle".

very interesting points illustrated! even though a philosophically driven talk

What good is this complexity if in the end the heat death or whatever will end all activity

You could not of summed up religion in one paragraph any better. Blind followers who don't ask questions.

Wrong. Blue was NOT created, at least not by humanity. Color exists because of light and how it passes through an object. Dogs see in black and white, so, even if we see something as blue, they can't but it's still blue to us. Take even colorblind humans for example, they can't see the same colors I do but the color still exists, it's just perceived differently. But, I support your argument.

How he can say there was complete darkness before universe ,science cant give all the answers , every time you give answer a new question automatically arises ,he said there was darkness but where was darkness when there was no universe and if there was no universe ,what was there ? ,where was that darkness?

Does anyone know the source of the numerical animation he uses to demonstrate complexity at 2:45?

How could a supernatural being with no beginning create things out of nothing? If one idea sounds absurd, so does the other.

I wonder about in animals, when they die so the information that they got die as well. But how about their instinct? Doesn't it get pass down from their ancestor?

The history of our world in 18 minutes - But the video is 17 minutes long?

All you need to seemingly "reverse entropy" is to add energy from an external source. When that energy is exhausted, the end of development is inevitable. By the way, his Great Courses "Big History" is not great: every lecture is padded with a long synopsis of the previous lecture.

it seems like a new form of intelligence, first it was basic atoms, then as they became more complex they became stars and planets. then out of the planets came DNA and life, which eventually became intelligent life; us, and now the internet is like a new form of the universe learning, becoming faster and greater like a brain. What will the future hold? is there going to be more thresholds? atoms inside of DNA which makes smarter humans which develop better technology?

So in wonderful lucky events , the right amount of elements had dense to form earth and the right temperatures on earth only was found to form the living organisms that had formed the DNA which led to evolution along the way up to us, where we had started accumulating knowledge, for me I can't believe that we are here today because of a sequence of a perfect circumstances that had just occurred with out any upper planing , even when he talked about the DNA it appeared as if he was talking about a smarter environment that made it .

How did they know that there was NOTHINGNESS 13.7 billions years ago?

Absolutely incredible.

Wow!

Because thanks to DNA, we can trace our roots to a single common ancestor in Africa.

As Jesse Pinkman would say, 'YEAH, SCIENCE, BITCH!'

good talk,but its funny how the most important stuff isnt mentioned. How was Dna formed? Dna started to exist out of nowhere, the most complex information storage just started to exist in its full complexity. Another point which is just skipped is that for 4 billions years you have primitive organisms and within blink of an eye you have full diversity of life. There is more strange stuff in the evolution, but its ridiculous to call it random and error. Life wasnt created by error.lol.iamatheist

Due to a notice by You tube that someone had responded to my post, I listened to David's presentation again. In absolute nothingness, 13.7 billion years ago and in the first second of time, something happened......Time and matter, which are inextricably connected, came into being instantly. David pinpoints such events with so much confidence. On what? Can you even understand how much time 13.7 billion years represents? Then he pinpoints that 380,000 years after the Big Bang......and so on. How can anyone possibly make such a calculation? Unless I look at old pictures of what my city looked like, 50 years ago, I hardly remember its former appearance, but this fellow can make such statements 13.7 billion years later? At least, the circus magician pulls real rabbits out of real hats, but this magician pulls everything out of nothing. If nothing at all existed, where did the first pulse of energy, Higg's boson or any thing else come from to start the generation of the Universe? Remember his assumption, that there was absolutely nothing in existence. Further on he says that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics reversed itself momentarily allowing for simple events to create complexity. This should be cause for psychiatric evaluation. The illustration of the whisked egg returning to the original unbroken state is tantamount to claiming that, at some point in history, you became your mother's father. If you are willing to believe that "something" can come out of "nothing", there is no further discussion possible. You will believe any and all the nonsense that follows and delight in it. Instead of lapping up the nonsense, why doesn't someone do some critical thinking, for a change, and provide facts and evidence on which to base David's fantasy?

Truly amazing!

If this isn't a preacher preaching to a devout congregation then I don't believe in religions anymore. Scientists have become atheists "holy men" who must tell the stories of days gone by. It is all so simple, so eloquent. Alas I belong to a different world view so I see all of this wonderful imagery and imagination as a fairy tale for those who can't and won't believe in a creator God.

“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?” [Carl Sagan, Cosmos, page 257]

Goldilocks is the moral of the story.

don't sweat the petty things, pet the sweaty things

I hate to be picky, but Neanderthal was disproven and refined under Homo Sapien.

I have had a fewoutof body experiences.. it is a deep dream mine was unlike the stories ihave heard about. Mine was a beautiful lesson.andit was the hardest thing I've ever been through It was a GOD test.i am very spiritual and it is in the heart not in vision that we must learn

No worries.

Goldilocks called, she'd like her royalties please...

how everything appeared from nothing 13.7 billion years ago. What law of science support this.

That was beast!

but blue was created, the idea of blue and the color blue were created, so get back to the question, who created god? did he just came out of nothing, if he did why is it so hard to say humans came from simpler molecules that came from nothing too

How about you try listening to the actual information conveyed in the video instead of getting stifled by topics that were not in the video. You might actually learn something.

4:15 He has basically proven the existence of God. Everything of this complexity cannot come out of nothing. God created this universe in an instant. Scientists that negate God nowadays are so ridiculous and fools. With all the proof we have of the creation of the universe they still insist that God doesn't exist, yet they use words like "lucky" and "magical". Romans 1:22 "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools"

He explains the complexity of the universe ... with a fairy tale (GoldieLocks; not too hot, not to cold ...) 2:57 Each stage is magical ... whaaaaaat. Not must one magical stage but all stages are magical? 4:00 the beginning of time is 13.7B years ago??? 4:27 BAM, all of a sudden a universe appears??? Whaaaaaaaat??? A universe just appears??? Not a molecule? Not a cell? Not a rabbit out of a hat ... but an entire universe??? And no explanation??? How do you make such a claim with no explanation. How can someone have so much faith that an entire universe appears all by itself, without the help of God. I could never have that much faith. But I do have enough faith that the only logical reasoning can be an Almighty God created the universe rather than nothing created an entire universe. When you take God out of the equation, things like "nothing created everything all of a sudden" with a massive explosion ... caused by nothing. There is no logic whatsoever to that theory. 5:09 Simple atoms appear ... whaaaaat??? ... "Atoms just appear???" ... he's telling a fairy tale. That's how fairy tales work. There is a twinkling sound and all of a sudden, something appears. Many people watch and accept this fairy tale story in awe ... contrary to all logic. Stunning. "Things start to heat up ... and BAM, our first stars" ... haha non-thinking people watch dumbfounded. Many are thinking, "that's amazing". For anyone buying into this tall tale, an all powerful and holy God, not bounded by time or space, created all things. Moving from chaos to order??? Come-on man.

I have to do this for my damn summer assignment😑🔫

He said before it was all black den something happen out of nothing wat made DAT black nothingness happen ?

Amazing talk! Props

Its a simulation. The big bang was when the machine was switched on. We are all in a multi player game called 'Milky Way'. Enjoy... heres Tom with the weather

I don't get it

What he says is pretty much the gist of it.

You sound as though you are referring to scripture. Why do you think it is correct?

interesting theory but where is the evidence that it happened that way

Sorry guys, I don't like this one. It has to be the first TED-ed I've disliked. It's not what he's saying, so much as his choice of words. This presentation is filled with little blunders & it irritates me.

Love ted talks.

it is turtles all the way down :P