The Big Bang, cosmos, and string theory – there are a surfeit of books that delve into wild ideas about the deepest mysteries of our universe. This caused astronomer Adam Frank to ask himself a question late one night in his fifth month of writing his book, About Time: “Who cares!? ” Save astronomers, physicists, and theologists, does cosmology matter on a day-to-day scale for the rest of us? His answer is yes … but not in the way one would expect.

Dr. Frank’s recently delivered a talk titled About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang as part of the Benjamin Dean astronomy lecture series at the California Academy of Science.  Cal Academy has no shortage of fascinating talks by prominent speakers, and this particular talk included immersive visuals to illustrate Frank’s points, planetarium style.

According to Dr. Frank, cosmology shapes the human experience through one important connection: time. Each cultural era has had its own concept of what time is, or “time logic”.  Time, therefore, is an invention that serves the current needs of humanity. To demonstrate this point, Dr. Frank asks, “What time is it?”  Everyone in the audience found the answer quickly, 7:48 pm, but the abstract concept of 48 minutes after the arbitrary hour of seven would have made no sense to someone living before minute hands were added to the invention of a clock.  For example, a thousand years ago people gauged the time of day by the placement of the sun and the length of the shadows (in Ancient Rome, noon occurred when the sun lined up between two prominent buildings), but there was no metering of time in increments as small as a minute.

“We are the stars burst into consciousness.” This is my favorite bit of wisdom from evolutionary philosopher Brian Thomas Swimme. His words are not simply metaphor; we truly are made of the stars. While stars are initially composed of just hydrogen and its fusion product helium, at the end of the star’s life carbon, oxygen, and all the rest of the elements are rapidly formed before the star’s last massive explosion into both nothingness and everything.

Swimme spoke at this year’s Wild and Scenic Film Festival in Nevada City, CA after a screening of his new movie Journey of the Universe: An Epic Story of Cosmic, Earth, and Human Transformation.  (As a side note for those of you interested in environmental advocacy, conservation politics, and edge-of-your-seat epic adventures — think free-soloing El Cap and class V white-water in the crocodile-filled Nile — I highly recommend next year’s festival).  In just 57 minutes, Swimme’s movie highlights 14 billion years worth of history, from the Big Bang to the beginnings of life and finally to our current precarious place on this planet.  But as environmental pressures mount to historically severe levels, Swimme says in his post-screening talk that it is difficult not to fall into despair if you are an intelligent and aware human being.

I’d like all of you to try something before reading this article: go outside (or, if you live in the Bay Area, you may have to settle for your fridge), and take a look a a piece of ice. Doesn’t seem to be much going on there, huh? Well, what if I told you that you could measure energy that originated from the creation of the universe using that piece of ice? Setting aside my possible insanity as an answer, you’d probably want a good explanation. Well, without further ado, allow me to explain…

How to see the history of the universe with a piece of ice:

Step 1: raise $271 million in venture capital.
Step 2: build a giant lepton detector in the south pole.
Step 3: record the energy released by sub-atomic collisions originating from the creation of the universe

See how easy that was?

Even if you’re unable to carry out this little experiment by yourself, it turns out you’re in luck because someone else is already trying it. I’m referring to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located in Antarctica.  It’s run by researchers at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and aims to tell us something about the distant (and I mean distant) past by measuring the energy emitted in ice deep within the south pole.