Fourth+Age+Of+Sand

Rather than forcing visitors to read the full origin of the concept of the "Fourth Age of Sand", I will summarize here.

Douglas Adams mapped the history of man with four major milestones of invention which all happened to involve transforming sand in to something earth-shatteringly important.

The ages of sand:

1. Teloscopic Lenses (16th century) - Allowed humans to understand that they are part of a universe that is much, much larger than almost anyone can fathom.
2. Microscopic Lenses (17th century) - Allowed us to understand that there is more to this world that can be visibly seen and that we are all incredibly complicated organisms.
3. Silicon Chips (1950s) - Allowed the human mind to become immensely more productive by allowing humans to design massive computations and tackle much larger problems.
4. Fiber Optics (1970s) - With the networking of the world's computers, came the ability of humans to finally cope with the overwhelming size of the world by providing every connected person an opportunity to finally make an impact on the world.

So until further notice, we are living in the fourth age of sand :-)