Name: 用七分鐘帶你了解整個宇宙的過去與未來！ (The History and Future of Everything -- Time)
Uploaded: 2025-07-07T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 7 min 11 s

程度副詞

But when you look at huge stretches of time, it's almost impossible to wrap your head around things.

但當你思索超長尺度的時間，理解事物則變得近乎不可能。

So let's start small with minutes, hours, days.

讓我們從小開始，由分鐘到小時，再到日。

You probably spent the last 24 hours mostly sleeping and working, with some coffee in there somewhere.

你過去的24小時很可能都用在睡覺和工作，間中享受一下咖啡。

Now let's look at 2013: relatively unnoticed, Hitler's bodyguard died at the age of 96; while in June, Edward Snowden started the NSA scandal.

現在讓我們看看2013年：不很受注目地， 希特勒的保鏢去世，終年96歲； 愛德華·斯諾登於六月踢爆美國國安局的監聽醜聞。

Moving back a bit, the 21st century is still pretty young and largely shaped by the attacks on 9/11 that ultimately  led to the third Iraq war.

再過去一點，21世紀還是相當年輕，而主導它的則是 九一一襲擊和其引致的伊拉克戰爭。

Oh, and Facebook and smartphones took over our lives.

Facebook和智慧型手機則大舉進佔我們的生活。

The 20th century has seen its share of conflicts too.

After two devastating World Wars, the Cold War lasted for almost the whole second half of it.

在兩次毀滅性的世界大戰後，20世紀的後半差不多都在冷戰中度過。

An average human lifespan covers most of this stuff as well as the birth of the internet  and the beginning of the information age.

普通人的壽命也足夠長去見證這些事，當然還有互聯網的誕生，以及資訊時代的開始。

The oldest living person on Earth is currently Misao Okawa, who was born in 1898, which means that her birth was closer to Napoleon ruling Europe than to the current day.

現時世上最年長的人瑞是生於1898年的大川美佐緒；這代表拿破崙統治歐洲比起今天更接近她的出生。

The last 500 years of human history brought enormous changes to our lifestyles:

人類的生活方式在過去500年發生了翻天覆地的變化。

Industrialisation gave rise to new ideas like communism, farmers became workers  and knowledge became easier to distribute.

工業革命帶來諸如共產主義等新意念。農民變成工人，而傳播知識變得更容易了。

The theory of evolution changed how we saw ourselves and the world we live in.

進化論改變了我們對自己以至這個世界的看法。

Columbus's "discovery" of America and the fall of Constantinople mark the end of the Middle Ages.

哥倫布「發現」新大陸和君士坦丁堡的淪陷標誌著中世紀的結束。

People in the Middle Ages were super into war over territory and religion, but the Black Plague was far more efficient than war, killing every third European in six years.

中世紀的人熱衷於領土和宗教戰爭；但論殺人，戰爭遠及不上黑死病：瘟疫在六年間就抹去了歐洲三分之一的人口。

Arriving in the Common Era, let's take a look where we came from!

讓我們在整個公元之下，再看看現代：

Our current century is tiny, and 2013 is barely visible.

21世紀看起來非常狹小，而2013年則近乎看不見。

The pyramids were constructed 4,500 years ago,

the peak of the Roman Empire was 2,000 years ago,

2000年前，羅馬帝國正如日中天。

so to the Romans the pyramids were as old as the Romans are to us today.

所以我們看羅馬人有多久遠， 羅馬人看金字塔就有多久遠。

History starts with writing. But what happened before that?

歷史始於文字記載，但在有文字之前呢？

About 12,000 years ago, the agricultural revolution took place.

大約12000年前，農業革命發生了。

Mankind began farming, which gave rise to the existence of cities and larger communities.

人類開始耕作，促成了城市和大型社會的誕生。

The dominance of the human species over planet Earth really started here.

而這正是人類稱霸地球的開始。

90,000 years ago, neanderthals and humans coexist in Europe.

9萬年前，人類和尼安德特人在歐洲共存。

Fun fact: this is roughly the time period a modern spacecraft would need to reach the nearest star.

小知識：這大概是一架現代太空船要到達最接近的恆星所需的時間。

Homo sapiens, the modern human, evolved 200,000 years ago.

智人，也就是現代人類，早於20萬年前進化出來。

Looking at all of human history, what we call AD seems pretty small, doesn't it?

看著整個人類歷史，所謂公元也顯得相當渺小。

6,000,000 years ago, our ancestors and the modern chimpanzee shared  a common ancestor for the last time,

人類和黑猩猩的共同祖先最後出現於600萬年前，

and for 2,750,000 years, stone tools were all the rage.

而石器的潮流足足持續了275萬年。

A mere 65,000,000 years ago, the age of the dinosaurs ended in an enormous explosion, which paved the way for the rise of mammals.

6500萬年前，恐龍時代結束於一場巨大的爆炸。 （*隕石很可能只是恐龍滅絕的其中一個原因）留給哺乳類崛起的機會。

But the dinosaurs ruled the Earth for an incredibly long time: over 165,000,000 years!

但其實恐龍統治了地球一段極長的時間：超過1億6500萬年！

That's so long that it means a T-Rex that lived 65,000,000 years ago is closer to seeing a live Miley Cirus concert than to seeing a live stegosaurus!

這段時間長得讓一隻生活的6500萬年前的暴龍，距離一場麥莉·希拉(Miley Cyrus)的演唱會更接近於一隻劍龍！

Animal life on this planet started 600,000,000 years ago:

the earliest animals were fish and other small simple sea creatures, then came insects, then reptiles,

最早的動物是魚和其他簡單的海洋生物；然後是昆蟲，再來是爬蟲類；

and finally, around 200,000,000 years ago, mammals join the party!

最後，大概2億年前，哺乳類也加入了動物界！

Before any animals appeared, there were 2,400,000,000 years when life consisted only of tiny microbes, countless single-cell bacteria.

在動物還沒出現的24億年間，「生命」就意味著微生物：無數的單細胞細菌。

For 3,000,000,000 years, all life on Earth was invisible to the naked eye.

在30億年間，地球上的生物都是肉眼看不到的。

It's hard to understand how single-cell organisms could develop into complex life forms like fish or sloths.

單細胞生物能夠進化為諸如魚和樹懶等複雜生物是一件很難理解的事；

但其原因只是時間。很長的時間：

2,400,000,000 years is lot of time to work with!

4,600,000,000 years ago, the Sun was born from the remnants of a giant explosion, 60,000,000 years later, Earth formed.

46億年前，太陽在一場巨大爆炸的遺骸中誕生；地球則形成於6千萬年後。

In those early years, frequent bombardment by comets and asteroids supplied the Earth with large oceans and a moon to send spaceships to.

年少的地球經常被彗星和隕石撞擊；這帶來了海洋，還有一個我們可以送太空船去的月球。

But as far as the whole universe goes, our Solar system is pretty new.

可是對比起整個宇宙，太陽系還算是新事物。

13,750,000,000 years ago, the universe was born, and 600,000,000 years later, our own galaxy formed from billions of stars,

宇宙誕生於137億5千萬年前，6億年後，數十億顆恆星組成了我們的銀河系。

The truth is, we don't know that yet, and maybe we never will.

事實上，我們還不知道，可能永遠也不會知道。

But we gave it some colours so at least we have that.

所以這裡寫著「古怪的無時間地帶」。 （「奇異點」只是「我們沒有頭緒」的縮寫）

Now let's take a look at what we know about the future.

現在看看我們對未來知道些什麼。

In roughly 1,000,000,000 years, the Sun will be so hot that  life on Earth becomes impossible.

大約10億年後，太陽會變得太熱，導致地球不再適合生命；

The death of the Sun 4,000,000,000 years later marks the end of the Solar system.

再過40億年，太陽系會隨 太陽死亡而步向終結。

A few trillions years from now, star production will cease and one day the last star in the universe will die.

數萬億年後，新的恆星不再誕生。終有一日，最後一顆恆星會迎來終結。

The universe will turn dark, inhabited only by black holes.

宇宙會變得黑暗，只剩下黑洞。

Long after the last black hole has evaporated,

our universe reaches its final stage, something called heat death.

然後再過很久很久，宇宙也來到其最終階段：「熱寂」。

Nothing changes anymore, the universe is dead forever.

事物不會再轉變，於是宇宙死了永遠地。

Now you're feeling some pretty weird feelings right now, aren't you?

你現在感覺怪怪的，覺得不是味兒，對不對？

The only time that actually matters is now!