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THE VIDEO SHELF · earth history

4.5 Billion Years in 1 Hour

Kurzgesagt's hour-long animated film that compresses Earth's 4.5 billion year history into one hour, roughly a million years per second. It follows the evolution of life through to humanity's tiny final stretch.

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Why HN readers recommended it

HN commenters recommend it for the sense of perspective it gives on deep time and how brief human history is.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Topic
earth history
Format
explainer
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
4
HN mentions in dataset
4
Recommendation years in dataset
2023–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • Kurzgezazegg’t posted a video showing all of the Earth’s six billion year history in one hour. Time flows at about a million years per second: [VIDEO] It gives a nice perspective, and it’s a visceral reminder that the planet has been through far worse than …

    sillysaurusx on Hacker News · 2023-11
    In Before-and-after images show how Greenland's glaciers have rapidly retreated

  • For a really brilliant visualization of the time scale, I can't recommend this Kurzgesagt video highly enough. It's an animation of the condition of the entire history of the Earth, at 1.5 million years per second of video. [VIDEO]

    gcanyon on Hacker News · 2024-11
    In NASA: Mystery of Life's Handedness Deepens

  • This video puts things into perspective, mapping the whole of 4.5B years of Earth history to 1 hour: [VIDEO]

    nlehuen on Hacker News · 2024-08
    In Matching dinosaur footprints found on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.