{"id":3104,"date":"2018-02-16T21:35:39","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T21:35:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=3104"},"modified":"2018-02-16T21:36:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T21:36:05","slug":"13-billion-years-yeah-thats-big-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2018\/02\/16\/13-billion-years-yeah-thats-big-history\/","title":{"rendered":"13 Billion Years? Yeah, That’s Big History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige<\/em> — Big ideas seem to thrive at Wabash, so it wasn\u2019t surprising that the Big History symposium generated an enthusiastic response on campus.<\/p>\n

To the uninitiated, Big History is multidisciplinary approach to the telling of history covering a span of 13.8 billion years \u2013 from the Big Bang to the present.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s as big of a context as you could possibly imagine,\u201d said Rick Warner, Associate Professor of History and the driving force behind the symposium. \u201cIt\u2019s humbling because if you did the math, you\u2019d only be talking about the human experience for the last five seconds of the last class in the semester and recognizing that all of this is a part of our history in some sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
(from left) Anne Bost, Wally Novak, Dennis Krause, Rick Warner.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Multiple disciplines were on display Friday, as a physicist, chemist, biologist, and theologian took turns equating their areas of expertise to the continuum that is Big History.<\/p>\n

Professor of Physics Dennis Krause explained that the way we interact with light is a direct interaction with history based on the time it takes light to travel that distance. For example, a reflection in a mirror is you two nanoseconds ago, while the sight of the sun in the sky is actually from eight minutes ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have equations that allow us to look back toward the Big Bang, or we can attempt to look ahead,\u201d Krause said. \u201cWe\u2019re here now, so we can look in either direction. It\u2019s like taking a test. We have the final answer; we simply need to figure out how we got there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Associate Professor of Chemistry Wally Novak described how chemistry fits in, emphasizing the formation of stars and chemical elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first galaxy, including the Milky Way, was formed one billion years after the Big Bang,\u201d Novak said. \u201cWhat happened next? Chemistry. Nearly 4.6 billion years ago our solar system was formed and chemistry continued.\u201d<\/p>\n

That chemistry allowed for the formation of elements and the reactions eventually leading to life on Earth.<\/p>\n

That was 3.8 billion years ago. According to Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Anne Bost, biologists don\u2019t understand how the first cell came to be, but they are interested in what happened next.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conditions on this planet were just right for life,\u201d Bost explained. \u201cAs a species, we can recognize a problem, and we can make purposeful change. We are capable of wondering what\u2019s next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
(from left) Sam Surgalski ’18, Craig Benjamin, Derek Nelson, Ted Peters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Warner that wonder is what makes Big History worthwhile.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a liberal arts experience par excellence because we get to think in many different ways,\u201d he said. \u201cI can learn from different disciplines and my students can too. It\u2019s a quintessential experience because our students have interests across the board. There are lots of different ways to think about what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keynote speaker Craig Benjamin, Professor of History at Grand Valley State University, talks of Big History and what was on display in Baxter Hall as a way to share information, to engage, and collaborate.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething like this is so beneficial, so exciting, to see professors like these coming out to share what they are doing with everybody,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the last four hours we\u2019ve seen how physics, bio, chemistry, and religion are all connected. History is always changing. The challenge for Big History teachers is to keep up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benjamin went on to say that one of the unique aspects of Big History is that everything relates to the same starting point \u2013 the Big Bang \u2013 a point driven home by Novak, who used a Joni Mitchell lyric from \u201cWoodstock\u201d to illustrate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Paige — Big ideas seem to thrive at Wabash, so it wasn\u2019t surprising that the Big History symposium generated an enthusiastic response on campus. To the uninitiated, Big History is multidisciplinary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/02\/BigHistory_1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3110,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions\/3110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}