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The Stolen Fire

Prometheus stole
fire.
We never gave it back.
Prometheus myth · as told by Hesiod, c. 700 BC
More on Wikipedia: Prometheus (opens in a new tab)
AnnoMyth
KardashevK 0.000

The Stolen Fire

2,500 years of Western civilization in 42 chapters, from the assembly of Athens to the Kardashev scale. Each chapter shows a three-dimensional model; scroll, use the arrow keys or the timeline to move through time.

  1. Myth: Prometheus stole fire. We never gave it back. Prometheus myth · as told by Hesiod, c. 700 BC More on Wikipedia: Prometheus

  2. 508/507 BC: First, everyone got a voice. Cleisthenes gives the citizens of Athens their assembly. Ekklesia · Athens More on Wikipedia: Athenian democracy

  3. 432 BC: Then we built perfection. 8 by 17 columns, not one line truly straight, so that everything looks straight. Parthenon · 447–432 BC More on Wikipedia: Parthenon

  4. 387 BC: We asked why. Fire, earth, air, water and the cosmos: five solids the world was supposed to be made of. Academy · Plato · Timaeus More on Wikipedia: Platonic solid

  5. 300 BC: We demanded proof. Two circles, one intersection, an equilateral triangle. The first proposition of the first book. Elements · Book I · Proposition 1 More on Wikipedia: Euclid's Elements

  6. 250 BC: With a lever we moved the world. “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the Earth.” Attributed to Archimedes · Syracuse More on Wikipedia: Archimedes

  7. c. 100 BC: We built the heavens in bronze. Some thirty gears predict lunar phases and eclipses. Antikythera mechanism More on Wikipedia: Antikythera mechanism

  8. 47 BC: Veni · vidi vici. Came, saw, conquered. Three words after a five-day campaign. C. Iulius Caesar · Zela More on Wikipedia: Veni, vidi, vici

  9. AD 80: We built for 50,000. Eighty entrances; the arena filled and emptied in minutes. Amphitheatrum Flavium More on Wikipedia: Colosseum

  10. AD 117: All roads lead to Rome. Some 80,000 kilometres of paved highways at the empire’s greatest extent. Imperium Romanum · Trajan More on Wikipedia: Roman roads

  11. AD 126: Concrete that lasts: 1,900 years. A 43-metre dome of unreinforced concrete, still the largest of its kind. Pantheon · Hadrian More on Wikipedia: Pantheon, Rome

  12. AD 476: Then the lights went out. The last Western Roman emperor is deposed. Romulus Augustulus · Ravenna More on Wikipedia: Fall of the Western Roman Empire

  13. AD 800: But the monks kept the fire. In principio erat verbum. Copied out, page by page. Scriptoria · Carolingian minuscule More on Wikipedia: Scriptorium

  14. 1163: Then we built cathedrals. Glass, stone and light across generations. Those who laid the first stone never saw the roof. Notre-Dame de Paris · 1163–1345 More on Wikipedia: Notre-Dame de Paris

  15. 1455: Then we printed knowledge. Movable type: 180 Bibles instead of a single copy. Johannes Gutenberg · Mainz More on Wikipedia: Johannes Gutenberg

  16. c. 1490: Man is the measure. Arms outstretched, he fits both circle and square. Leonardo da Vinci · after Vitruvius More on Wikipedia: Vitruvian Man

  17. 1512: We painted heaven. Four years on the scaffold, more than 500 square metres of ceiling. Michelangelo · Sistine Chapel · 1508–1512 More on Wikipedia: Sistine Chapel ceiling

  18. 1610: The Earth lost the centre. A telescope, four moons around Jupiter. He probably never said “and yet it moves”, but he meant it. Galileo Galilei · Sidereus Nuncius More on Wikipedia: Sidereus Nuncius

  19. 1492: The map was blank. Three ships, five weeks without sight of land. Columbus · Santa María, Pinta, Niña More on Wikipedia: Voyages of Christopher Columbus

  20. 1522: We sailed around the world. Some 270 men set out. 18 came back. Magellan–Elcano · 1519–1522 More on Wikipedia: Magellan expedition

  21. 1685: Then mathematics became music. Johann Sebastian Bach is born in Eisenach. Toccata and Fugue in D minor · BWV 565 · attributed to Bach More on Wikipedia: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

  22. 1687: We found the law. Fire the cannonball fast enough and it falls around the Earth forever. Isaac Newton · Principia More on Wikipedia: Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica

  23. 1776: All men are created equal. “We hold these truths to be self-evident …” Declaration of Independence · Philadelphia · 4 July 1776 More on Wikipedia: United States Declaration of Independence

  24. 1769: Then we put fire to work. The separate condenser makes the steam engine several times more efficient. James Watt · Patent 913 More on Wikipedia: Watt steam engine

  25. 1876: Then the voice travelled. “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Alexander Graham Bell · 10 March 1876 More on Wikipedia: Alexander Graham Bell

  26. 1913: We built on the line. A chassis in 93 minutes instead of twelve and a half hours. Ford · Highland Park · 1913–1914 More on Wikipedia: Assembly line

  27. 1800–2023: We doubled life. Global life expectancy at birth: about 29 years around 1800, about 73 today. Our World in Data · rounded More on Wikipedia: Life expectancy

  28. 1953: We read the code. Two strands, four letters: A, T, G, C. Everything alive is written in them. Watson · Crick · Franklin More on Wikipedia: DNA

  29. 1936: We stopped rivers. 221 metres of concrete across Black Canyon. Hoover Dam · Colorado River More on Wikipedia: Hoover Dam

  30. 1942: We found fire in the atom. Beneath a stadium stand in Chicago: the first self-sustaining chain reaction. Chicago Pile-1 · 2 December 1942 More on Wikipedia: Chicago Pile-1

  31. 16 July 1969: Then we left the Earth. 34 million newtons of thrust at liftoff. Apollo 11 · Saturn V · LC-39A More on Wikipedia: Apollo 11

  32. 20 July 1969: One small step. Some 600 million people watched it live. Sea of Tranquility · lunar module Eagle More on Wikipedia: Moon landing

  33. 1977: We sent a letter into space. Voyager 1 carries a golden record and is now more than 25 billion kilometres away. Voyager 1 · launched 5 September 1977 More on Wikipedia: Voyager Golden Record

  34. 2022: We saw the beginning. Light that travelled more than 13 billion years to reach us. James Webb Space Telescope · 18 mirror segments More on Wikipedia: James Webb Space Telescope

  35. 1971: We taught sand to count. 2,300 transistors. Fifty years later, more than 100 billion fit on a single chip. Intel 4004 More on Wikipedia: Intel 4004

  36. 2007: The world fit in a pocket. Phone, map, camera, library: one piece of glass. iPhone · unveiled 9 January 2007 More on Wikipedia: iPhone (1st generation)

  37. 21 Dec 2015: Rockets came back. For the first time, the first stage of an orbital rocket lands upright again. Falcon 9 · Landing Zone 1 More on Wikipedia: Falcon 9

  38. 2017: Then the sand began to speak. prometheus stole fire. we never gave it back Attention Is All You Need · 2017 More on Wikipedia: Attention Is All You Need

  39. Next: Next: Mars. A launch window every 26 months. Hohmann transfer · seven to nine months in flight More on Wikipedia: Hohmann transfer orbit

  40. +1,000 years: Type II: a star. A civilization that uses the entire output of its sun: about 400 septillion watts. Kardashev scale · 1964 More on Wikipedia: Dyson sphere

  41. +100,000 years: Type III: a galaxy. A hundred billion stars. Kardashev scale · 1964 More on Wikipedia: Kardashev scale

  42. Forever: The fire still burns. Freude, schöner Götterfunken. Joy, beautiful spark of the gods. Schiller · Beethoven · Symphony No. 9 · 1824 More on Wikipedia: Ode to Joy