The DNA Double Helix（1950s science magazine gouache）

74 years agoThe Transistor and the Computer

1953-04-25

The DNA Double Helix

Watson and Crick publish the molecular structure of DNA in Nature.

Art style · 1950s science magazine gouache

World population

2.66Bpeople

Primary energy power

3.6×10¹²W

London → New York message

0.02 seconds

Civilization metrics

Each sparkline shows the documented history of a metric on a logarithmic time axis. The dot marks the selected moment.

Kardashev index

0.656

Based on primary energy power · Type I = 1

World population

2.66Bpeople

1/3 of today

Total human primary energy power

3.6×10¹²W

1/6 of today

Compute per dollar

7.1×10⁻³floating-point operations per second per dollar (FLOP/s per $, nominal dollars)

1/11.5T of today

Fastest delivery time for a message from London to New York

0.02 seconds

1 times faster than today

Fastest speed reached by humans

4,764km/h

1/8 of today

Near this moment

The eight closest milestones. Select a title to jump there.

1948-06-21Computing
The University of Manchester's experimental Baby computer successfully ran a program held in electronic memory, demonstrating a computing approach in which both instructions and data reside in the machine. Source
1950Intelligence
Turing publishes "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", proposing the "imitation game". Source
1953-04-25Humanity
Watson and Crick publish the molecular structure of DNA in Nature. Source
1954Energy
Bell Labs publicly demonstrates the first practical photovoltaic cell. Source
1954-06-26Energy
The Soviet Obninsk plant goes online, the first to feed nuclear power into an electricity grid. Source
1956Intelligence
The Dartmouth Summer Research Project convenes, and artificial intelligence becomes a field of research. Source
1957-10-04Humanity
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1. Source
1958Intelligence
Rosenblatt proposes the perceptron, a machine that learns from data. Source

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The Transistor and the Computer

6 scenes · Select a scene to visit that moment

Electronic computers and the transistor appear, information theory and artificial intelligence are proposed, and computation begins to be automated.

Playable workshops

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Every timeline entry cites its source. Metrics interpolate logarithmically between sourced data points. Forecasts include institutional and community views, and attributed site scenarios; years are not guaranteed realization dates. Illustrations are AI-generated in each era's style.

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