What If We Traveled One Billion Years Into the Past?

imagine if you could take in all of human history in the blink of an eye well from the first steps out of the slime to the first steps on the moon that's exactly where we are in cosmic terms but in that short amount of time we've done quite a bit what would you see if you traveled one billion years into the past did earth ever look like a giant slush ball how far back would you have to go to see the first humans and are we already going extinct this is what if and here's what would happen if you went one billion years into the past [Music] in a sense we're all time travelers we travel into the future at the rate of one second per second but if you want to go backward in time you'll need to go faster than the speed of light that's according to einstein or maybe your time machine would jump through wormholes a hypothetical tunnel that connects two different points in space time however you decide to travel through the jumbled mess of time you'll see the effects and then the causes of the most powerful forces that shaped our world you might leave wondering how many times did the earth freeze as you watch history unfold or refold or whatever you might be surprised at the toll humanity has taken on this planet in such a short amount of time if you start in 2021 and move backward you would watch the sixth mass extinction event happening right now known as the holocene extinction we are currently living through one of the most destructive periods of our time caused by human activity as humans destroy coral reefs and rain forests the numerous wildlife and plants that depend on these ecosystems die with them according to the international union for the conservation of nature 67 of endangered species could be extinct in 100 years and since most of these extinctions are undocumented we won't even know about what we've lost until it's gone maybe not even then visit the 18th and 19th centuries and you could watch the pollution created by the industrial revolution reversed back into the smokestacks cities would shrink down and return to their roots as rural farmlands while this would let you see the explosion of the human race in terms of population and pollution if you want to retrace our first steps you'll need to go back farther tour the planet 200 000 years ago and you would witness the arrival of our species the homo sapiens jump back seven million years to northern chad and the oldest known species of humans could stroll right by you known as the cylanthropus jedensis this mysterious link in our chain looked ape-like but was the first to walk upright he seems friendly enough if you think you have challenges now imagine living during this age you'd need the skills these early humans learned to survive and you'd need them fast but if you sign up with the great courses plus you can make this year whatever that is yours by learning with a purpose with top experts in their fields taking deep dives into a wide range of subjects there's something for everyone if you're spending time with our primitive ancestors you might want to take the outdoor fundamentals course covering everything from preparation to navigation or maybe introduction to paleontology to mentally prepare you to meet the spinosaurus the largest carnivore to ever walk the earth well you can watch or listen to these lectures on any device anywhere with the great courses plus app visit thegreatcoursesplus.com what if to get a 14 day trial with unlimited access that's the great courses plus dot com slash what if you won't have a chance to go back in time to get this deal and if you don't study up you might not make it past the jurassic era but travel to 60 million years ago and you'll see the first primates emerge from the humid rainforests of asia okay step back to 65 million years ago and you'd find yourself under the giant asteroid that created a global extinction event the impact caused a tsunami and filled the air with dust and debris the crash also set off massive volcanic eruptions across the world with the sun blacked out and the land flooding the last of the dinosaurs died out but without this event mammals like us may never have taken over the planet go back 130 million years and you'll see the first flowers bloom as you travel 200 million years back in time you'll witness the breakup of pangaea the mass of land that will become the continents as the land breaks apart the lava eruptions will be so massive they kill almost 80 percent of the species on earth okay keep going back another 20 million years and watch the first early mammals small and nocturnal crawl around in the dark and if you go back to 230 million years ago you could watch the early dinosaurs walk for the first time on two legs before that can happen though the earth has to go through what would be known as the great dying also called the permian extinction 95 of all species on earth died but you could also watch the earth's land masses come together to form pangaea now you could take a walk from argentina to china but things get interesting around 375 million years ago you would watch marine animals walking onto land for the first time maybe you would see a titalic which looks like a salamander mixed with a fish this strange creature would later evolve into mammals and amphibians but just like every species you saw before this growth doesn't happen without a cost and now we're at the first extinction event the ore division extinction occurs when ice sheets spread from the polar caps into the oceans almost 70 percent of all sea life died off during this planet-wide freeze over 460 million years ago okay keep going back and you could see how life started underwater called the cambrian explosion the lineage of most of the species on our planet today can be traced back to this milestone but scientists are still unsure how this unique event happened between 635 and 850 million years ago the earth froze over twice once for almost 60 million years and the next time for 15 million years one theory suggests that the earth was only covered in a thin film of ice allowing the sun's rays to seep through and plant the seeds of life below but go back one billion years in history and you'll be surprised to find well not a lot during this time red algae are forming spores to reproduce cells are coming together to form larger organisms life on earth is microscopic and not very threatening but nothing has been more vicious to our planet in such a short amount of time as humans but maybe humans will set things right eventually there could be a change in our planet or our hearts that might set our future on a different path or maybe like the dinosaurs and neanderthals we would just be replaced by something else so let's take our time machine and find out what if you traveled one billion years into the future well that's a story for another what if

Channel: What If

Views: 467,401

Rating: 4.8688216 out of 5

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, mysteries, what if earth, planet earth, imagine, history, blink of an eye, moon, slime, cosmic, time, travel, witness, rise and fall, species, time travel, slushball earth, homo sapiens, endangered species, time travelers, into the future, speed of light, faster than the speed of light, time machine, wormhole, history unfolds, mass extinction, holocene extinction, coral, sahelanthropus, sahelanthropus tchadensis

Id: 5IyGQIgfgBc

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021