As far as we know, around 4,500 million years ago this rock that we live on coalesced from the dust and debris left over from the formation of our sun. Without airplanes, pizza delivery, or the Internet, things moved more slowly across the early Earth than they do today.
就我們所知道的，大約四十五億年前，我們居住的這顆石頭由太陽組成後剩下的塵埃及殘骸結合而成。沒有飛機、比薩外送、或是網路，萬物在早期的地球上移動得比今天慢多了。
For example, from isolated puddles of water, the oceans formed over the course of 400 to 800 million years. That's how long it would take for your hair to grow around the earth, twice.
舉例來說，從分離的幾個小水灘開始，海洋在四至八億年的過程中形成。那是讓你的頭髮長到能環繞地球的時間，還可以繞兩圈。
In that same time, bacterial life did spread across the watery globe. Higher plants and animals, on the other hand, took much longer to develop and disperse. But we're going to skip those three billion years (during which your hair would have grown to the moon) and talk about us, Homo sapiens.
同時，細菌生命體確實散佈那充滿水的地球。另一方面，更高的植物及動物花上更長時間演化及散播。但我們要略過那三十億年(在其間你的頭髮會長到月球去)並談談我們，人類。
We were much faster than our own hair, which would have grown a meager 27 kilometers in the 180,000 years we took to cross Africa and reach all the unfrozen continents.
我們比我們自己的頭髮快多了，在我們橫跨非洲並抵達所有未冰封的大陸中的十八萬年，頭髮只會長到少少的二十七公里。
In many of these places, we were able to develop useful practices like agriculture, but because we were scattered across the globe, the best ideas and tastiest regional foods could only gain ground through trade or human migration.
在許多這些地方中，我們能夠發展出實用的工藝，像是農業，但因為我們分散在地球上，最棒的點子和最美味的地區食物只能透過貿易或人類遷徙普及化。
Wheat, for example, was domesticated around 8,500 BC to make porridge. Actually, some speculate it might have been for beer, but either way wheat made it from the Fertile Crescent to both the Atlantic and the Pacific by roughly 2,500 BC.
舉例來說，小麥在大約西元前八千五百年時被種植出來做麥片粥。事實上，有些人猜測它可能是為了釀啤酒，但無論是哪個原因，小麥在大約西元前兩千五百年時從肥沃月彎傳到了大西洋及太平洋兩地。
Six thousand kilometers in six thousand years might seem like a blistering pace, but just wait for the Middle Ages. The bubonic plague and the printing press each spread across Europe in less than a hundred years, bringing death and literacy to the populace before their hair could have even grown 15 meters.
六千年中移動六千公里也許看似像個極快的步調，但只要等到中世紀。黑死病和印刷術每個都在不到一百年傳遍歐洲，將死亡和知識帶給一般民眾，在他們的頭髮可以甚至長到十五公尺之前。
In the 20th century, mania for both the Beatles and the hula hoop raced around the world in a year or two. Now even a year is a long time. With millions of people jet-setting across the globe every day, diseases such as SARS can vacation almost anywhere within a few short weeks.
在二十世紀，披頭四和呼啦圈兩者的風潮在一到兩年席捲全球。現在甚至一年都是很長的時間。有數百萬人每天搭噴射機跨越世界，像是SARS的疾病可以在短短幾個禮拜到幾乎任何地方去度假。
And the 0s and 1s that make up this video take, on average, less than a tenth of a second to get to you. That's about half a nanometer, or two atoms, of hair growth. In short, the pace of travel on Earth has really sped up!
還有組成這段影片的0和1，平均而言，花上少於十分之一秒到你眼前。那是大約半個奈米，或是兩個原子的頭髮長度。簡言之，地球上旅行的速度確實變快了!
But how do we know this stuff? How do we know what happened on Earth before the records of written history? Why do we think the earth is 4,500,000,000 years old? And what on earth is going to happen in the next 45 years?
但我們怎麼知道這東西？我們怎麼知道在有文字記載的歷史紀錄之前地球上發生了什麼事？我們為何認為地球是四十五億歲？在接下來四十五年究竟會發生什麼事？
Welcome to the story of what we know about the Earth and how we know that we know it. This is MinuteEarth.
歡迎收看我們了解地球什麼、以及我們如何知道我們了解它的故事。這裡是MinuteEarth。
