This control of energy sets humans apart from all other animals.

Humans, however, evolved symbolic language. Language allowed us to share informationwith great precision, including ideas that are complex and abstract. This created a newadaptive method called “collective learning.”

Hydrogen atoms fused into heavier elements in stars.Later, those elements combined into planets, and eventually into living organisms

context.

One of the goals of world history is to tell the human story as a single, connected narrative,not just as a collection of separate stories about different communities.

The numbers make this clear. A Boeing 747 flying at 550 miles per hour would take nearlytwenty years to reach the sun, which is 95 million miles away. Reaching our closest star,Proxima Centauri, would take over five million years at the same speed.