by David Reid, with help from his anonymous friend 'Dan,' This is a theory that a friend and I came up with a while ago. Rand's age is the 3rd age, so the AoL is the 2nd age. It is quite possible that, in the Wheel of Time, our age is the 1st age. Think about it... our scientists have determined the approximate age of our planet, and we have fossil records of the development of the human species. There is no way that there has been an age before ours, because that would imply people and cities before 'Lucy' walked the earth. Our theory is that the first age is huge, lasting from the Big Bang, through the creation of Earth and human beings, through the discovery of science and our modern time, and will continue until some time in the future, when (supposedly) science will lead to the discovery of the True Source and the One Power, and the Pattern that governs the universe. Scientists will discover how to tap into the Pattern, perhaps creating something similar to the bore in the dark one's prison, allowing our universe access to the True Source.

This event signals the beginning of the 2nd age, the Age of Legends, where science still exists, but is complimented by the use of the One Power. The Age of Legends probably lasts for thousands of years, enough time so that the twentieth century becomes ancient or pre-history. Remember, even the word 'war' was forgotten during the AoL.