The 1999 version of this, which had stayed on the web unmodified to 2011,
is superceded by my blog post
Timelines. For display purposes, JG has a much nicer one at
Geo Timeline,
with a focus on science and earth history. The figures are removed now, but the
description of approach is still here. JG and I have discussed combining our
ideas.
Principle: There actually is a principle involved in the construction here.
One of the things which annoys me about many time lines is that they make no
attempt to separate by significance. One winds up with 1 line that says
'discovery of fire' and, equally weighted 'Bannister runs 4 minute mile'.
The latter is quite significant, but I believe Bannister would agree with
me that his breaking the 4 minute mile doesn't quite rate with the discovery
of fire.
So what I've done is broken the time line in to period, one is for the
history of the universe, down to one which covers the last 600 years.
Within each one, I've tried to list items which are significant when
compared against all other events in that time period. Some recent things
may well be significant against a long perspective, so they'll be listed.
Some are significant, but only against recent perspective, so are on the
shorter time scale.
Robert Grumbine
Last Modified 27 May 2011
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