TABLES AND CHARTS
Geologic Ages and Events
| TIME (BP) in millions of years | ERA/EPOCH | LIFE FORMS | GEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS | |
| 5000 | Atonal | Rocks | Mountain ranges upthrust; continents form | |
| 3000 | PRECOCIOUS | |||
| Catatonic | Greem slime | Earthquakes and volcanoes | ||
| Prophylactic | Green slime w/ orange spots | Volcanoes and earthquakes | ||
| 505 | ORTHOPEDIC | |||
| Accordian | Seashells | Torrential rains | ||
| 425 | Pedestrian | More seashells | Thunder and lightning | |
| 360 | Freudian | Slimy things | More rain | |
| 325 | Artesian | Slimy things w/ tentacles | More thunder and lightning | |
| 280 | Pestiferous | Nasty crawly things | More rain, oceans form | |
| 230 | Obstreperous | Lots of nasty crawly things | Rain w/ intermittent volcanoes | |
| 205 | METATARSAL | |||
| Cryptic | Big warty things | Swamps form | ||
| 165 | Styptic | Really big warty things | Hot, drifting continents | |
| 135 | Creosote | Warty things too big; start over | Even hotter, lots of mosquitoes | |
| 75 | CRETINOUS | |||
| Obscene | Little hairy animals | Cooler, 20% chance of comets | ||
| Uglyscene | Big hairy animals | Windy, small continent warning | ||
| 39 | Vaseline | Animals w/ silly horns | Cold, w/ night and morning glaciers | |
| 28 | Listerine | Animals that don't understand about tar pits | Fair inland, patchy fog near coast | |
| 12 | Ovaltine | Shree trews | Great weekend for a barbecue | |
| 1 | Plasticine | First homonyms | Smog alert | |
| 25,000 years ago | Recent | Modern person; first Republicans | Freeways upthrust; suburbs form | |
| 15 minutes ago | Very recent | Computer nerds emerge | Fast-food chains develop | |
 |
CONVERSION TABLE FOR
Length |
| SYMBOLS USED IN MATHEMATICS | |
 | greater than, less than, or maybe equal to |
 | has some kind of relation to |
 | is very reminiscent of |
 | probably has nothing to do with |
 | is too expensive |
 | must be equivalent to something |
 | x varies as y, or maybe z |
 | plus or minus an unknown sum |
 | I'll let you know when I look it up |
 | I left the figures in my coat pocket |
 | some |
 | pie |
 | what's the difference? |
| METRIC UNITS OF MEASURE | PREFIXES in powers of 10 | ||
| Name | Description | ||
| arg | unit of work done incorrectly | 12 | helluva- |
| galumph | unit of waste motion | 9 | heckuva- |
| lumpen | unit of resistence to getting out of bed in the morning: gravity × inertia × apathy | 6 | lotsa- |
| 3 | buncha- | ||
| fignewton | = 100 calories | 2 | bozo- |
| jowl | unit of excess weight: lumpens × fignewtons | 1 | decca- |
| melvin | unit of temperature, as measured from "just right" to "hellish" | -1 | desi- |
| -2 | sexi- | ||
| yok | unit of humor | -3 | silli- |
| vampire | unit of repulsive force of garlic | -9 | banana- |
| candelabra | unit of tasteless interior decoration | -12 | doodoo- |
Introduction
The Universe / Matter & Energy / The Earth / Evolution / The Descent of Man