Logarithmic timeline


A logarithmic timeline is a timeline laid out according to a logarithmic scale. This necessarily implies a and an infinity point, neither of which can be displayed. The most natural zero point is the Big Bang, looking forward, but the most common is the ever-changing present, looking backward.
The idea of presenting history logarithmically goes back at least to 1932, when John B. Sparks copyrighted his chart "Histomap of Evolution". Around the same time it was also explored by the cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster, who used it to propose that memories naturally fade in an exponential manner. Logarithmic timelines have also been used in future studies to justify the idea of a technological singularity.
A logarithmic scale enables events throughout time to be presented accurately, but enables more events to be included closer to one end. Sparks explained this by stating:
Two examples of such timelines are shown below, while a more comprehensive version can be found at Detailed logarithmic timeline.

Example of a forward-looking logarithmic timeline

In this table each row is defined in seconds after the Big Bang, with earliest at the top of the chart.
Seconds after Big BangPeriod
10−45 to 10−40Planck Epoch
10−40 to 10−35Planck Epoch
10−35 to 10−30Epoch of Grand Unification
10−30 to 10−25Epoch of Grand Unification
10−25 to 10−20Epoch of Grand Unification
10−20 to 10−15Epoch of Grand Unification
10−15 to 10−10Electroweak Epoch
10−10 to 10−5Electroweak Epoch
10−5 to 100Hadron Epoch
100 to 105Lepton Epoch
105 to 1010Epoch of Nucleosynthesis
1010 to 1015Epoch of Galaxies
1015 to 1020Epoch of Galaxies

The present time is approximately seconds after the Big Bang; the Sun and Earth formed about seconds after the Big Bang. 1020 seconds is 3 trillion years in the future.

Example of a backward-looking logarithmic timeline

In this table each row is defined in years ago, that is, years before the present date, with the most recent at the top of the chart. Each event is an occurrence of an observed or inferred process.
Years agoPeriodEvent, invention or historical development
10−3 to 10−2last 3 daysSee, for example, the content of, and.
10−2 to 10−1last 36 daysSee, for example, the content in
10−1 to 100last yearSee, for example, Events in
100 to 1012005 onwardInternet, biotechnology, nanotechnology, global warming, more...
101 to 10220th centuryCar to spacecraft, nuclear power, antibiotics, electronics, totalitarianism, world wars, more...
102 to 1031000 to 1900Renaissance, printing press, Industrial Revolution, colonialism, firearms, steam engine, more...
103 to 104Start of Holocene, 8000 BCE to CE 1000, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron AgeCities, empires, writing, wheel, civilization, religions, philosophy, more...
104 to 105Pleistocene ends, Paleolithic ends, Mesolithic, beginning of NeolithicIce Age, music, art, cave paintings, dance, tally stick, medicine, Neandertal extinction, Flores Man extinction, advanced Homo erectus sub-species extinction, Ice Age ends, domestication – agriculture and animal husbandry
105 to 106Pleistocene, PaleolithicHumans, language, spirituality
106 to 107Pliocene, Paleolithic begins, Lower Paleolithichunting-gathering, tools, fire
107 to 108Late Cretaceous, CenozoicGrasses, mammals, Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event
108 to 109Paleozoic, MesozoicCambrian explosion of life, animals, flowering plants, Permian–Triassic extinction event
109 to Precambrian, cosmologyBig Bang, Galaxy formation and evolution, Earth, life