Deep Time Scales

Comments focus on debating and emphasizing vast timescales like thousands, millions, or billions of years for geological, evolutionary, or cosmic processes, often contrasting them with short human lifespans or historical periods.

📉 Falling 0.4x Science
3,876
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#9135
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
6
2008
21
2009
26
2010
44
2011
82
2012
62
2013
126
2014
96
2015
116
2016
171
2017
186
2018
241
2019
322
2020
305
2021
407
2022
391
2023
527
2024
376
2025
350
2026
21

Keywords

index.html xkcd.com HD thousands years millions years million years billion years millions thousands thousand dating billion earth

Sample Comments

balfirevic • Aug 12, 2022 • View on HN

Did you mean hundreds or thounsands of millions of years?

Ididntdothis • Sep 9, 2019 • View on HN

Maybe a after a couple thousand decades :-)

toasterlovin • Nov 10, 2019 • View on HN

More like 1000 years, but still: much longer than is useful to anybody alive now.

ummonk • Sep 28, 2018 • View on HN

Billions of years is a gross understatement.

gojomo • Jun 30, 2022 • View on HN

Thousands of years, or millions?

cryptonector • May 30, 2025 • View on HN

Just a few decades out of... millenia.

burrows • Oct 3, 2021 • View on HN

What timescale are you thinking on, 75 years or 15000 years?

oneshtein • Sep 14, 2025 • View on HN

Multiple millions by thousands of years. Probably yes.

mirimir • Mar 14, 2016 • View on HN

It's been a few hundred thousand years, I believe.

mensetmanusman • Jul 14, 2023 • View on HN

What's a few billion years anyway