4.55 billion years - that's the age of Earth (give or take 1 percent). To most people they see that number and realize it as a big number, or a long period of time. But these same people also consider a 4 minute commercial break to be extremely long. I don't think most people truly understand how long 4.55 billion years is. So let's try to break it down to something that is more comparable to our lives today.

The 12 month calendar. Let's scale the Earth's age down to a 12 month calendar. Using this same ratio we can calculate how long other things have been on Earth, like dinosaurs or humans. Starting with dinosaurs which first appeared on this Earth about 225 million years ago and disappeared about 65 million years ago. This means dinosaurs were on Earth for about 165 million years. Again, a very large number.

So the Earth is about 4.55 billion years old with dinosaurs only occupying about 165 million of those years. Using our 12 month scale dinosaurs have roughly been on this planet for about 0.4 months. That's right, less than half a month. So with the Earth's age being a full 12 months, dinosaurs have been on it for a little less than half a month. Not very long at all when comparing it to the age of Earth. That's fine you say, but what about humans?

Depending on who you talk to, humans have only been on this Earth for about 2 million years. Using our same ratio, humans have been on this Earth for about 0.005 months, or about 0.023 weeks, or about 0.160 days, or about 3-4 hours. Again, with the Earth's age being the full 12 months, humans have only been on this planet for about 3-4 hours.

No very long eh? When you break it down to something people can more easily understand, humans have barely been in existence. Though, through our life spans and concepts of time it feels like forever. Let's also not forget that the Earth is fairly young when comparing it to other planets or suns. When you compare humans existence to the age of the universe (12-14 billion years old), we've been around for a blink of an eye.

Now given that amount of time, don't you think that pretty much anything is possible? Like evolution? Most creationists discredit evolution by stating it takes way to long, or that the possibility of it happening is way to rare. These people don't seem to understand time. With enough time virtually anything can happen. People see 4.55 billion years and think, yeah that's long, but I don't think they truly see how extremely long that is. The process of evolution is extremely likely given an ever-changing world and about 4.55 billion years.

I suck at math by the way.