The Elevator
Ride
This is from a book called "Waking Up in Time" by Peter Russell.
This book is an updated issue of "The White Hole in Time" and
both were written before 9/11/2001.
This begins at the former tallest building in New York, the 108 story
World Trade Center. If we think of this building as the history of earth
it would go something like this. We are getting on an imaginary glass
elevator on the ground floor so we can see what is happening as we move
through history. The elevator ride begins on the ground floor where Earth
begins forming 4.6 billion years ago, and we start going up. As the elevator
rises, going through time, each floor we pass is the passage of about
42 million years. But we would not see much until the 25th floor where
the simplest form of life would start showing up. It will take another
25 floors, to the 50th floor before we would see photosynthesis occur
in simple plants. Then the pace will pick up a bit and by the 60th floor
we will see oxygen-breathing bacteria, and by the 70th floor we will see
sexual reproduction begin. As the pace increases we see multicellular
organisms by the 80th floor and fish by the 97th floor. Then on the 99th
floor the fish crawl out of the sea. In just five more floors (104th)
Dinosaurs appear and rule the earth until the 107th floor. And finally
on the 108th floor mammals appear.
At one inch from the ceiling of the 108th floor we have gone through 99.99
percent of life's history on earth, and Neanderthals have not even appeared
on the scene. This does not happen until 1/4 inch from the ceiling. Within
a fraction of an inch later Cro-Magnon humans with language, clothes,
and religion appear. Christ is born at about the thickness of a layer
of paint on the ceiling, and all modern history occupies in approximately
the space of a microscopic bacterium trapped under the ceiling paint.
Lets us carry this just a step farther, and see the same exponential growth
of our scientific knowledge. Russell estimates that it took 1,500 years
for human knowledge to double. We then doubled that again in just 250
years. Then in only 150 years that doubled, with only 50 years to double
that again. Then it goes ballistic doubling in 10, then7, and 6. We are
now doubling the sum total of human knowledge in less than 18 moths. At
this rate, by 2012 we will reach a saturation point and may go into meltdown.
What form this will take no one knows.
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