What is Big History? Understanding the story of everything
Connecting the dots from the Big Bang to modern humanity
As a high school student I studied physics, chemistry and biology, but as each of these subjects was taught in isolation, I didn’t learn how everything is connected. It wasn’t until years later as a university student sitting in a lab prac thinking about anything and everything other than what I should have been paying attention to, that it finally clicked.
I thought about how subatomic particles make up atoms, how depending on their number of protons atoms form different chemical elements, and how these elements form chemical compounds, including organic compounds that along with energy form the basis for life.
My existence could be traced back to the origin of the Universe, of which I am both within and a part. This realisation felt euphoric, and forever changed my understanding of self and my place in the Universe, because for the first time I understood I was the Universe experiencing itself and everything is connected.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was thinking about big history — the history of everything from the moment time began to the present. It’s a big subject, and it begins with a bang.
