What are Thresholds?
Thresholds are major events that build off each other to eventually get to the universe the way we know it today. Each threshold has ingredients, goldilocks conditions, and new complexities. The ingredients are all the necessary things to work properly, for example in a recipe for cupcakes the ingredients would be all the food products listed. The goldilocks conditions are needed for all the ingredients to work together properly, for example the goldilocks conditions for the cupcakes would be the oven set at 400° and how long to bake them. Lastly, the new complexities are what come out of the ingredients and goldilocks conditions working together, in our example the final cupcakes would be the new complexities. Each threshold is important to Sharpies because without one of them the correct events would not have taken place in order for Sharpies to be created.
The Big Bang
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Many people have probably heard of the Big Bang, but how did it come to be and why is it so significant? Scientists and historians still do not know today the events and conditions that led up to the Big Bang. But what came out of the Big Bang is everything that exists and everything we know, the universe. Without the Big Bang this project, and all the other Little Big History projects, wouldn’t have been created.
Stars Light Up
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Even though the Big Bang created the universe, it was still far from being the universe we live in today, the first step was for the first stars to be formed. In order for stars to form there needed to be hydrogen, helium, and gravity. The conditions for stars to form had to be tiny variations of matter throughout the universe and high temperatures above 10 million °C. These ingredients together created the first stars, and eventually galaxies. Without the creation of stars our galaxy, the Milky Way would have not came into existence, and ultimately the creation of our Earth to make Sharpies.
New Chemical Elements
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Mostly any object you can think of can be traced back to chemical elements, but how were these elements created? The ingredients for these chemicals to be created are different aged stars and very high temperatures. The goldilocks conditions are stars running out of hydrogen fuel and giant stars collapsing. These ingredients and condition combined made elements that can be found in millions of objects today. Without the creation of new chemical elements Sharpies wouldn’t have been able to be created because the chemicals in the ink would not exist.
Earth and The Solar System
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Our solar system, it’s something that we are all aware about, but we never look much deeper into it then that. The solar system was created by chemical elements, clouds of matter, and new stars. The conditions for the ingredients to work properly are gravity, accretion, and collisions. The Earth was created with the solar system, without Earth Sharpies, along with every other man made object would not be created.
Life on Earth
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Four billion years ago DNA and RNA in just right the right environment containing the right amount of energy and water, life emerged on Earth. Of course humans were not the first life forms on Earth, but instead microscopic species. Over millions of years forms of life evolved and branched off into different groups. Life on Earth is essential to my topic, and mostly everybody else’s because without it no humans would be able to create Sharpies, or any other topic of study.
Collective Learning
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What sets humans apart from other species is our ability to collectively learn, to use symbolic language and store information from generation to generation. Our ability to collectively learn enables us to learn from ancestors mistakes, and remember survival skills. Collective learning comes from powerful brains and symbolics language combined with interactions between individuals and communities, which allowed information to spread. Homo Sapiens emerged from collective learning, who could adapt to their environment and survive. Collective learning is important to my topic because without it, Homo Sapiens would have not been created, and the species who invented Sharpies would not exist.
Agriculture
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Agriculture was a major turning point for the human population, human communities became denser and there was a great understanding of the environment. Those ingredients plus the motivation for resources, and the right conditions due to warm climates after the last ice age made agriculture possible. The outcome of agriculture was the domestication of plants and animals, and the start of civilizations. Agriculture ultimately led to the the end of worrying of looking for food, and opened up more time for activities other than foraging. More time led to job specialization. Agriculture is important to my topic of study because without it job specialization would have never occurred, which would leave time for humans to create things, eventually leading to the Sharpie.
The Modern Revolution
The Modern Revolution, the era we currently have been living for the past two hundred years. A great deal of all the technology and modern amenities are due to the modern revolution. The ingredients for this threshold are new sources of energy and increasing large exchange networks. The ingredients along with globalization, promotes commercialization and increases innovation, The Modern Revolution came to be. With The Modern Revolution came many great inventions and innovations, one of them being my topic, the Sharpie.
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