These 23 Unbelievable Facts Will Mess With Your Understanding Of Time
The following nuggets of information will definitely give you another perspective on the passage of time and “progress”. Some are quite eye opening!
1. Queen Cleopatra lived closer to the building of Pizza Hut than the building of the Pyramids.
The Great Pyramid was built circa 2560 BC, while Cleopatra lived around 30 BC. The first Pizza Hut opened in 1958, so that is about 500 years closer.
2. Every two minutes, we now take as many photos as all of humanity took during the 1800’s.
On the left is the first photograph ever taken (1826). On the right is a cat who accidentally took a picture of itself (2013). It’s estimated that in 2014, humans will take around 880 billion photos. In fact, 10% of all the photos ever taken were taken in the past year.
3. Oxford University is older than the Aztec Civilisation.
In 1249, the University in Oxford was officially founded. The Aztec civilization began with the founding of Tenochtitlán in 1325.
4. Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was at the beginning of “The Fresh Prince.”
James Avery started on The Fresh Prince at the age of 45. Today, Will Smith is a slightly older 45.
5. Within of 66 years, we went from taking flight to landing on the moon.
In 1903 the Wright brothers successfully flew a plane for just 59 seconds. In 1941, the Japanese used flight to bomb Pearl Harbor, and 28 years after that, Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969.
6. A TI-83 calculator is more powerful than in the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the moon.
The guidance computer from the Apollo 11 mission ran at 1.024 MHz, about 1/6th of the processing power of a TI-83 calculator. One is used by students to play Tetris, the other took humans to the moon.
7. The oldest living person’s birth is closer to the signing of the Constitution than present day.
Misao Okawa was born in 1898, an astonishing 116 years ago. The Constitution was signed in 1787, which makes her life 4 years closer signing of the constitution than to today.
8. John Tyler, America’s 10th President, has two living grandchildren.
John Tyler served from 1841 to 1845. He had a son, Lyon, at age 63. Lyon would have Lyon Jr. and Harrison at 71 and 75, respectively. Both are still alive today and in their 80’s.
9. The first pyramids were built while the woolly mammoth was still alive.
No way!! Most mammoths died out long before civilizations arose, but a small population survived until 1650 BC. By that time, Egypt was halfway through its empire, and the Great Pyramids were already 1000 years old.
10. The fax machine was invented the same year people were traveling the Oregon Trail.
The first fax machine was developed by Alexander Bain in 1843, meanwhile The Great Migration began across America.
11. France was still executing people by guillotine when Star Wars came out.
Star Wars premiered in theaters in May 1977. The last execution by guillotine took place September 10th of the same year.
12. Betty White is older than sliced bread.
Well there you go, Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented sliced bread in 1928, while Betty White was born in 1922.
13. This is what the difference in Olympic Gold looks like across 56 years of women’s vault.
Loooks like you have to work a lot harder these days for gold. On the left, Larisa Latinya wins gold for the USSR in 1956. On the right, McKayla Maroney wins gold for the US in 2012.
14. Everything in this 1991 RadioShack ad exists in a single smartphone.
I love technological progress. I remember scouring these ads for the latest inventions, and now they are all in my pocket!
Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, stated that over the history of computing, the number of transistors on circuits doubles approximately every two years. Moore’s Law has held true for over 40 years and successfully predicted our incredible advancement in mobile technology.
15. When Warner Brothers formed, the Ottoman Empire was still alive.
Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania in 1903. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire spanned from 1299 to 1923, after which Turkey became an independent nation.
16. Harvard University was founded before calculus was derived.
Harvard is the oldest higher education institution in the US, founded in 1636. Calculus wasn’t derived until later in the 17th century, with the work of Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton.
17. The last time the Chicago Cubs won a World Series, women were not allowed to vote.
Well they better up their game. The infamous cold streak by the Chicago Cubs baseball team extends back to 1908, when they won their second World Series. Women in the US acquired the vote in 1920.
18. Humans never fully experience the “present” – we’re always living in the past.
Hard to believe but every human being is living at least 80 milliseconds in the past. David Eagleman believes that our consciousness lags behind actual events and that when you think an event occurs, it has already happened before your brain has a chance to create a cohesive picture of the world.
19. There was more time between the Stegosaurus and the Tyrannosaurus Rex than between the Tyrannosaurus Rex and you.
The Stegosaurus lived ~150 million years ago, while the T-Rex lived only ~65 million years ago. Practically yesterday.
20. If you’re over 45, the world population has doubled in your lifetime.
Better move over then. In 1968, the world population was 3,557,000,000. Today, the world population is 7,217,000,000 and grows by over 200,000 daily.
Source: worldpopulationstatistics.com
21. There are whales alive today who were born before Moby Dick was written.
Incredible to believe that some of the bowhead whales living off the coast of Alaska are well over 200 years old. They were born well before the famous book Moby Dick was written in 1851.
22. If the history of Earth were compressed to a single year, modern humans would appear on December 31st at about 11:58pm.
The human race has lived on Earth for only 0.004% of the planet’s history, and to think we believe we own it?
23. If that’s not enough, this is what’s happening in the world at this very moment.
It’s all happening! This brilliant comic by artist XKCD is called Frequency. It’s one thing to talk about time…it’s another thing to feel it.
Source: Distractify
Well if that doesn’t mess with your head I don’t know what will! If you liked this post then share it with your friends.