Fifteen Billion Years in the Life . . A breathtaking, vibrantly illustrated history of the universe. "A valuable new way to conceive of the immensity of geological time and of organic evolution that has occurred within it. It has broad appeal to the public and will be a useful guide for science educators as well."--E. O. Wilson. "My Walk Through Time was an unforgettable experience, awe-inspiring, and humbling...rich in scientific fact and unexpectedly, exquisite humor."--Jane Goodall. A Walk Through Time is a landmark book, gorgeously illustrating the remarkable drama of the history of the universe, from the furious blast of the Big Bang to the first pulse of life on Earth, and on through the rich pageant of life's evolution from primordial microbes to the rise of Homo sapiens. Spanning 15 billion years, the story of life's greatest mysteries emerges here through 130 beautiful four-color illustrations and an absorbing narrative. Combining the knowledge of three expert authors, the text covers the most up-to-date findings, including new understandings about how the universe coalesced into galaxies and planets; how microscopic animals can survive in such superheated environments as deep-sea vents and inside the Earth's core, and the possibility that water came to our planet from space in the form of millions of tiny comets. A Walk Through Time gives readers a new perspective on awe-inspiring processes that produced us and our place in the universe. The companion to a traveling exhibition developed by Hewlett Packard and the Foundation for Global Community. * Lavishly produced by the team that created The Illustrated Brief History of Time. Brian Swimme, Ph.D. (San Francisco, CA), is a cosmologist and the director of the Center for the Story of the Universe at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is the author of several books, including The Universe Story. Dr. Sid Liebes (Palo Alto, CA) is a senior scientist at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D. (San Francisco, CA) is an evolutionary biologist and consultant to the United Nations. Every step you take in A Walk Through Time moves you millions of years forward in Earth's history. Inspired by the idea of a one-mile stroll through the evolution of life, Sidney Liebes recruited some terrific writers and artists to create a traveling museum exhibit; A Walk Through Time summarizes the experience in book form, with the help of fascinating photos and intelligent, enjoyable text. The most profound realization along this temporal journey is just how small a part human history plays in the big time line. In the museum exhibit, where one foot equals one million years, human presence takes up all of one-thousandth of an inch; in the book's time line, we merit barely a speck. Our tiniest living fellows--the bacteria and blue-green algae, the amazing arthropods, the merging microbes--are the real stars of the show. Readers are treated to intriguing views of bizarre organisms like tardigrades, velvet worms, and lichens ("Taking everything we know about algae and fungi, we still never would have predicted the outcome of their synergy"), along with the microbes that once ruled the earth. Only at the very end of the line, long after the development of sexual reproduction, after the great Cretaceous extinction, after the development of flight and fur, will you find humans. Taking this walk is a great lesson in perspective, a cautionary tale about hubris and longevity that every human should read. --Therese Littleton Imagine a walk where every step forward transports you a few million years in time. Just such a mind-expanding premise inspired this landmark book, developed from the acclaimed "Walk Through Time" exhibit on tour around the world. Here, in one lavish volume, is the remarkable drama of the history of the universe and life on Earth. Travel from the furious blast of the Big Bang to the first pulse of life, and on through the rich pageant of life's evolution from primordial microbes to the rise of Homo sapiens. Span 15 billion years to discover life's greatest mysteries emerging. Over 130 beautiful four-color illustrations and an absorbing narrative highlight significant events and themes in Earth's life story. The original exhibit itself is re-created as a timeline that runs throughout the book, pinpointing key stages in the evolutionary drama and where they fall in the vast sweep of time. One result is a new appreciation of the rich complexity of the life processes of the planet aeons before the appearance of large-scale plants and animals. On the mile-long scale of the original "Walk," for example, microbial life appears 4,000 feet in the past and remains the sole life-form for most of the mile. Humans appear merely three feet ago. The last ice age concludes only one-tenth of an inch in the past, and the world's population currently doubles each half a thousandth of an inch. By relating life's story according to the accura