FROM MY PERSPECTIVE: VIII. Continuum of change: Perspectives on physical or “hard” sciences

Abstract

This article, the eighth in a series on the new millennium, describes timelines that provide the setting and context for basing very long forecasts. The longer and more complete the historic patterns of past and present, coupled with conceptual possibilities and prospective developments, the clearer the pattern of ongoing incremental change becomes. Likely patterns of continuing change literally “pop out” when assessing such chronologies. Feasibility, credibility and practicality of 1000 year forecasting typically is dismissed out-of-hand. To help dispel such mindsets, timelines covering wide-ranging natural science phenomena spanning thousands to billions of years are presented here. Depicting the coming and going of familiar natural science phenomena in this manner reveals how the future fate of the world we live in is predetermined. These very long horizons suggest potentials for projecting physical science possibilities a mere 1000 years into the future.