From The Beginning
Chapter 1
Let us begin at the beginning with the beginning of time somewhere around and about 13,800 million years ago. I fear that exactitude escapes us but what’s a few tens of millions of years between friends? To be fair, it’s not the kind of thing that happened on a Tuesday evening. But what, you may wonder, was going on before the beginning of time? Well, you’ve not missed anything. It was really very quiet, nothing going on at all, not a whisper, not even a place or time to whisper in. If you’re feeling confused then maybe you should contemplate the idea that Time itself is a kind of illusion. It’s tempting but I’m not sure it’s helpful. It honestly makes no more sense to me than to you. I’d suggest that you stick with the beginning thing. Imagine that this is a story and, like all stories, this story has a beginning.
So, what was it like back there at the beginning of time? The truth is I’ve got no idea. There’s a lot going as the universe expands and a supernova explosion causes our solar system to form about 4,500 million years ago but it’s all darkness to me. I like to imagine that I was there as a glint in the eye of Being. It’s not until about 3,800 million years ago that the time arrives for my less than grand entrance onto the stage. There’s been a few experiments with Life on Earth these past hundreds of millions of years but I’m the one that is your actual ancestor. And, to commemorate this fact, I’ve been given a special name. I am your Last Universal Common Ancestor but you can call me Luca, the bringer of light. Not a lot of light, of course, just a little bit, because I’m just a little thing. In fact, very little indeed, a good ten thousand of us might squeeze into a full stop, but then size is not everything when you’re in possession of a superpower.
This superpower, dear reader, is the ability to replicate. Yes, astonishingly, I can make copies of myself. It’s easy really, just a matter of dividing in two from time to time and floating off our separate ways joined in spirit only by a few copying instructions. I’m not the emotional sort and us so-called prokaryotes are not given to caring one way or the other about the welfare of our splitees, or really much else for that matter, but it’s us who are going to change the world. And one day, like it or not, I’m going to become you and so, my various progeny, I think some respect is due. In the meantime, you can leave me to float about because not much is going to change for the next 1,800 million years.
And while you are becoming acquainted with my smallest incarnation, this may be a good time for a few words about very big numbers. I imagine that some amongst you may be feeling a little apprehensive on being presented with unusually large expanses of time. But it’s just an unfamiliarity thing and you’ll be much happier once you’ve learned to think in millions of years. There are, after all, only 13,800 of them. It’s quite a lot of millions but it’s not endless millions.