Astronomy:Graphical timeline from Big Bang to Heat Death

TimeAxis = format:yyyy orientation:vertical # order:reverse does not work ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:-170 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:-171

AlignBars = justify

BarData =

 bar:Clock
 bar:Dummy1
 bar:Era
 bar:Dummy2
 bar:Dummy3
 bar:Periods
 bar:Dummy4
 bar:Events

TextData =

 fontsize:M
 pos:(365,75)
 text:"Planck epoch"

1. pos:(210,50)

 pos:(205,50)
 text:"Big Bang"
 pos:(20,50)
 text:"0: Linear time"
 pos:(10,1980)
 text:"Double-logarithmic time:"
 text:"100*log log year"
 pos:(200,1960)
 text:"Heat Death"

PlotData=

 textcolor:black  fontsize:M

 width:90
 bar:Clock  color:events  align:right  shift:(43,3)  mark:(line,teal)
 at:-171  text:"1E-43 seconds"

1. at:-141
2. at:-135

 at:-129  text:"One picosecond"

1. at:-122 text:"One nanosecond"

 at:-113  text:"One microsecond"

1. at:-102 shift:(43,-13) text:"One millisecond"
2. at:-100 text:"1E-10 years"

 at:-88  text:"One second"
 at:-60  text:"One hour"
 at:0  text:"One year"
 at:48  text:"One thousand years"
 at:78  text:"One million years"
 at:95  text:"One billion years"

1. at:100 text:"1E10 years"

 at:108  text:"One trillion years"
 at:118  text:"One quadrillion years"

1. at:126
2. at:132

  at:200  text:"1E100 years"

1. at:200 text:"10¹⁰⁰ years"

 at:300  shift:(43,-13)  text:"1E1000 years"

 width:55
 bar:Dummy1

 width:130
 bar:Era  mark:(line,white)  align:center  shift:(0,0)
 from:-171 till:78  color:era1  text:"The Primordial Era"
 from:78   till:115  color:era2  text:"The Stelliferous Era~ZOOM  IN"
 from:115  till:160  color:era1  text:"The Degenerate Era"
 from:160  till:200  color:era2  text:"The Black Hole Era"
 from:200  till:300  color:era1  text:"The Dark Era"

 width:55
 bar:Dummy2
 bar:Dummy3

 width:165
 bar:Periods  align:center  shift:(0,0)  mark:(line,white)
 from:-171  till:-164  color:period1  text:Grand unification epoch  # end at 10-37 seconds, not 10-33?
 from:-164  till:-129  color:period2  text:Electroweak epoch
 from:-129  till:-113  color:period1  text:Quark epoch
 from:-113  till:-88 shift:(-40,0) align:left  color:period2  text:Hadron epoch                            Formation of hydrogen nuclei
 from:-88   till:-72  color:period1  shift:(0,0)  text:Lepton epoch
 from:-72   till:75  color:period2  shift:(0,0)  text:Photon epoch
 from:75  till:90  color:period1  text:"Dark Ages"
 from:90  till:93  color:period2  text:"Reionization" # 100-400 million years
 from:100   till:101  color:period1  text:"Life on Earth~ZOOM  IN  MORE"

 width:55
 bar:Dummy4

 width:55
 mark:(line,purple)  textcolor:black  fontsize:M
 bar:Events  color:events  align:left  shift:(30,-2)

 at:-171 shift:(30,-15) text:"Planck time, the smallest observable unit of time ~and the time before which science is unable to ~describe the universe.  At this point, the force of ~gravity separated from the electronuclear force."
 at:-164 shift:(30,-10)  text:"Separation of the strong force from the ~electronuclear force."
 from:-164 till:-160 align:left shift:(-55,-3) color:time1  text:"Inflationary epoch. The Universe expands exponentially"
 at:-160 shift:(30,20)  text:"Reheating after inflation populates universe ~with quarks and anti-quarks."
 at:-129                text:"The weak force separates from the ~electromagnetic force resulting in the four ~separate forces we know today."
 at:-113                text:"Quarks become confined within hadrons."
 at:-88                 text:"Neutrinos cease to interact with other particles."
 at:-72  shift:(30,-11) text:"Lepton/anti-lepton pairs annihilate."
 from:-72  till:-65  align:center shift:(0,0) color:time2  text:"Big Bang nucleosynthesis"
 at:-65  shift:(30,0)  text:"3 to 20 minutes: Formation of helium nuclei"
 at: 69  shift:(30,-14) text:"70,000 years: Matter domination"
 from:73 till:74 shift:(-65,-5) color:time1 mark:(line,white) text:"Recombination"
 at:75  shift:(30,35) text:"379,000 years: Hydrogen and helium nuclei ~capture electrons to form stable atoms. Photons ~are no longer able to interact strongly with atoms. ~Cosmic microwave background radiation streams ~freely."
 at:87   text:"10-17 million years - Habitable epoch begins"
 at:90   text:"100 million years. First star began to shine."
 at: 94  text:"600 million years. Formation of the first galaxy"

1. at:98 text:"4 billion years. Earliest Population I stars"

 at:100  text:"9.1 billion years. Formation of the Sun"  shift:(30,-10)
 at:101  mark:(line,magenta)  text:"13.8 billion years: this present day"

1. at:101 text:"19.1 billion years Sun becomes a red giant"

 at:115  text:"Formation of new stars ceases.~Stars cease to fuse."  shift:(30,-7)
 at:118  text:"Solar systems no longer exist. Planets flung out ~of orbit or consumed by larger bodies.~Sun has become a black dwarf."  shift:(30,26)
 at:130  text:"Galaxies no longer exist. Stars flung out of orbit~or consumed by black holes."  shift:(30,11)
 at:156  text:"Half of all protons have decayed."
 at:160  shift:(30,10)  text:"All protons decay. The matter that stars and life~were built of no longer exists."
 at:182  text:"A black hole with the mass of the Sun~has evaporated."
 at:200  text:"A supermassive black hole with mass~10 billion solar masses has evaporated."

</timeline>

Usually the logarithmic scale is used for such timelines but it compresses the most interesting Stelliferous Era too much as this example shows. Therefore, a double-logarithmic scale s (s*100 in the graphics) is used instead. The minimum of it is only 1, not 0 as needed, and the negative outputs for inputs smaller than 10 are useless. Therefore, the time from 0.1 to 10 years is collapsed to a single point 0, but that does not matter in this case because nothing special happens in the history of the universe during that time.

[math]\displaystyle{ s = \begin{cases} \log_{10} \log_{10} year & \mbox{if } year \gt 10 \mbox{ , corresponding to } year = 10^{10^{s}} \\ 0 & \mbox{if } 0.1 \le year \le 10 \\ -\log_{10} (-\log_{10} year) & \mbox{if } year \lt 0.1 \mbox{ , corresponding to } year = 10^{-10^{-s}} \end{cases} }[/math]

Comparison of log₁₀ and log₁₀log₁₀ scales

year	log10 year	combination of log10log10 year and -log10(-log10 year)
1010000	10000	4
101000	1000	3
10100	100	2
1010	10	1
102	2	0.30
101	1	0
100	0	undefined but here forced to 0
10−1	-1	0
10−2	-2	-0.30
10−10	-10	-1
10−100	-100	-2

The seconds in the timescale have been converted to years by [math]\displaystyle{ second / 31 557 600 }[/math] using the Julian year.

See also

• Big Crunch
• Big Rip
• Big Freeze
• False vacuum
• Graphical timeline of the Big Bang
• Graphical timeline of the Stelliferous Era
• Heat death of the universe
• Life timeline and Nature timeline
• List of other end scenarios than Heat Death
• Timeline from Big Bang to the near cosmological future
• Timeline of the Big Bang
• Tiny Graphical timeline from Big Bang to Heat Death - Timeline uses the log scale for comparison with the double-logarithmic scale in this article.

References

• Fred C. Adams; Greg Laughlin (19 June 2000). The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-86576-8. https://books.google.com/books?id=f5IOlMlFyJAC.