OCTOBER 23rd - A Blink of the Cosmic Eye



On this day in 1977, American paleontologist, Elso S. Barghoorn, announced the discovery of some algae microfossils, complete with some super-scientific name and some super-scientific qualifiers, that were 3.4 billion years old. In layman’s terms--really freaking old. Interestingly enough October 23 was also thought, for a long time, to be the day on which the Earth was created. In 1650, church leaders interpreted that the bible documents Earth’s creation on October 23, 4004 BC. Also a long time ago. Not quite the 3.4 billion years of the first life-forms, or the 4.5 billion years most scientist believe the Earth has been around for. So old Barghoorn may have been giving a little nod there, as in “I’ll take your 5700 years and raise you a few billion.” In any case, it shows that we are here but for a blink of the cosmic eye. Stuff has been around so long that if you really start to think about it, you start feeling like you are watching first 30 minutes of The Tree of Life and wondering if somebody slipped industrial-strength hallucinogens in your cola. Or you could also think about how in all that vast amount of mind-melting time, an infinite confluence of very specific events that had to happen just so, an atom bumping into another this way instead of that way, occurred in order for you to exist at this exact time in this exact place. Of course all that thinking might hurt your head. Basically, I’m just saying you’re lucky to be here, so you might as well enjoy it. In another 3.4 billion years, when the intelligent light-photons study our time, they probably won’t know who the hell you were, but they might find your fossils and be able to scan them with their special analytical photons and relive every moment of your life. Would suck if the highlight was that time you ate a whole pizza by yourself.

This day has been Marked.

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