Epitome for Eleanor: A Short History of the Known Universe: I. The Big Bang to the Bronze Age

By Justin Cahill

From the formation of our galaxy and solar system to the emergence of life and the first civilisations, Epitome for Eleanor is a short history of the known Universe for children. Part I covers the period from the Big Bang to the Bronze Age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Cahill
• Release date: May 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310163982

Justin Cahill

Welcome to my Smashwords profile.I am a New Zealand-born writer, based in Sydney. My main interests are nature and history.My thesis was on the negotiations between the British and Chinese governments over the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It was used as a source in Dr John Wong’s Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, the standard work on that conflict.I wrote a column on the natural history of the Wolli Creek Valley for the Earlwood News (sadly, now defunct) between 1992 and 1998.My short biography of the leading Australian ornithologist, Alfred North (1855-1917), was published in 1998.I write regular reviews on books about history for my blog,’ Justin Cahill Reviews’ and Booktopia. I’m also a regular contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald's 'Heckler' column.My current projects include completing the first history of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand told from the perspective of ordinary people and a study of the extinction of Sydney’s native birds.After much thought, I decided to make my work available on Smashwords. Australia and New Zealand both have reasonably healthy print publishing industries. But, like it or not, the future lies with digital publishing.So I’m grateful to Mark Coker for having the vision to establish Smashwords and for the opportunity to distribute my work on it.

Book preview

Epitome for Eleanor: A Short History of the Known Universe

I

The Big Bang to the Bronze Age

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Justin Cahill

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Discover other titles by Justin Cahill at Smashwords.com

Please direct all inquiries to Justin Cahill at

PO Box 108, Lindfield, 2070

New South Wales, Australia

or email to mailto:[e-mail]

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Epitome (from Greek: πιτέμνειν, epitemnein, meaning to cut short, to abridge): A summary; a condensed, distilled account; an instance that represents a larger reality.

Respectfully dedicated to

the memories of Carl Sagan, Stephen Gould, Jacob Bronowski, Glyn Daniel and

Sir Kenneth Clark and to Sir David Attenborough, Adrian Desmond, James Moore,

Baron Renfrew of Kaimsthorn and Michael Wood.

"[W]e are dwarfs astride the shoulders of giants. We master their wisdom and move beyond it. Due to their wisdom we grow wise and are able to say all that we say, but not because we are greater than they."

– Isaiah di Trani, She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rif, 301-303.

"I like non-fiction ! There’s so much to know about this World. I think you read something [and] somebody just invented it ? Waste of time !"

- Barbara’s father in Sideways, Twentieth Century Film Corporation, 2004.

Cover illustration: Painting of the fresco of a Minoan lady known as ‘La Parisienne’, found at the Palace of Knossos in 1901 and dated 1400 to 1350 BC. This painting, made by Emile Gilliéron père in 1908, is reproduced by kind permission of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (www.metmuseum.org). The original fresco is in the Archaeological Museum at Heraklion in Crete.

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Contents

Welcome !

I. Knowledge

II. The Universe

III. Earth

IV. Life

V. Us

oOo

Welcome !

Dear Eleanor,

Welcome ! It seems like only yesterday that we brought you home from the hospital – but now you are almost three. As you already know, there is so much to find out about everything. But why care about all these things ? Surely it’s more fun to watch Hoopla Doopla or play outside ?

The answer is simple: knowledge is strength. You’ll need many skills in life. They include ‘insight’, which is knowledge of yourself, and ‘empathy’, which is an understanding of others. They are important for your development as both an individual and a citizen. This is because they help you work out ways to treat others the way you’d like them to treat you and to give everyone their due.

But above all you will need to develop good judgment. To do this, you must be able to work out if something is right or wrong, good or bad, or somewhere in between. To do this, it’s not enough just to know a lot of things. You must be able to work out their strengths and weaknesses. Often, you will have to persuade other people that you are right. There are three skills you must learn to achieve this: how to collect, assess and present information - especially information about things that happened in the past.

We can learn a lot from the past. It gives us many examples of good and bad things and people, and a few that were somewhere in between. We are here only once, and for such a short time. Who wants to make the same mistake twice ?

As you can see, while we know a lot about ourselves and the past, there is a lot we don’t know. You are already starting to ask us some difficult questions. Just the other day you asked Mummy "where was Baby Tom before he was born ?" No-one knows. What is Baby Tom ? We can see he has a body, a happy smile and that he likes to chat. But are his body and his personality the same thing, or are they separate things ? Has his personality always existed, only waiting to be born ?

Maybe you will work some of these things out. After all, your mind is not just a bottle to be filled with facts and figures, but a fire to be lit. So I have put together this little epitome to get you started.

It is divided into four parts. Parts I and II are about things that have happened since time began. After that, in part III, we look at the ways we have developed to understand the universe and ourselves. Then, in part IV, we look at how our cultures and societies are structured, their achievements and our future.

This little book is only meant as a general guide, not as a textbook or code. Never hesitate to ask us, or anyone else, any questions you might have. We will not always have the answers, but we can often point you in the right direction. Over time, you will find your own way and your own answers.

Your loving Father,

Lindfield, 2014

I. Knowledge

i

How do we know what we know ? There are three types of knowledge: experience, reason and faith. Experience is the knowledge we gain through our senses. It is the things we see, hear, smell, taste or touch.

Reason is the knowledge we gain by deducing or inducing information from what we sense. We deduce things when we reason from general things to individuals. So, for example, if we see that all cats have whiskers, we can deduce that Julia and Lily will have whiskers. We induce things when we reason from individuals to things in general. So as cats have tails, we can induce that all cats have tails. Julia and Lily are very proud of their tails.

But this doesn’t always work. There is a type of cat from the Island of Manx that has no tail. So sometimes we need to remember not everything falls into neat and tidy categories. We call these things ‘grey areas’.

Finally, there is faith. This is knowledge that you accept without having either sensed or reasoned it. There are many things we experience that we cannot see. Things such as kindness and love cannot be seen. We can see people give these things, but not the things themselves. So how do we know they really exist ? Many people believe these things come from the gods; all-power beings we cannot see who know all and see all.

There are many people who say "I’ll believe it when I see it !" I suppose seeing something is the best way of knowing about it. But, in reality, we all use a combination of experience, reason and faith to work our way through life. So sometimes it can be difficult to work out who is right or wrong. Life is full of grey areas.

ii

The people who study grey areas fall into several groups. Those who study the natural world and use experience and reason to explain why things happen are called ‘scientists’. ‘Science’ comes from the Latin word ‘scientia’ meaning knowledge. There are many different types of scientists as there are so many things for us to inquire about. They include cosmologists and astronomers, who study the origins of the Universe, its galaxies, solar systems and planets. There are geologists, who study the Earth’s natural features, and biologists, who study living things.

Those who use experience and reason to work out broader issues, such as how we know things, what you should do to be a good person and whether we really exist are called ‘philosophers.’ Those who also use faith to work these things out are called ‘theologians’. They all have something to offer us, so you shouldn’t be too hard on the ones you don’t agree with.

iii

One of the main issues that occupies all these people is whether knowledge is innate, meaning it’s something we’re born with, or learned after we are born. We know some things as soon as we are born. As soon as you and Tom were born,