Off The Record
These 23 Mind-Blowing Facts Will Destroy Your Understanding Of Time
Time is very much a part of our day-to-day realities. If we are not tied by the string of time, we are bound to feel lost.
The following 23 awesome facts will forever change the way you perceive time.
1. Pizza Hut was closer to Cleopatra than the Great Pyramid
Cleopatra was born 2,530 years after the Great Pyramid. She was also born 1,928 years before the birth of the Pizza Hut. So, Pizza Hut is closer to Cleopatra’s time by a little more than 500 years.
2. It takes us only 2 minutes to equal the total number of photos taken in the 1800’s
Joseph Nicéphore Niépse from France took the first ever photograph in the year 1826. According to an estimate, the staggering 880 billion photographs taken in 2014 alone accounted for 10% of the photographs that humanity had taken until then.
3. Oxford University was born when the Aztecs weren’t
1249 is the official establishment year of the Oxford University after teaching started there in 1096. Tenochititlán was founded only in 1325 and this marked the foundations of the Aztec civilization.
4. Uncle Phil of ‘The Fresh Prince’ was younger than present day Will Smith
Will Smith, presently, is a little older than 45 years. James Avery was of the same age when he started playing the role of Uncle Phil.
5. Journey to the Moon took 66 years
The Wright Brothers took the first ever 59-second flight in 1903. Sixty-six years hence, in 1969, the Apollo 11 touched the moon.
6. The Apollo 11 supercomputer was ‘weaker’ than TI-83 calculator
The super computer that guided Apollo 11 to the moon had a 1.024 MHz processor whose capacity was in fact one-sixth of the TI-83 calculator’s processor. You can play Tetris on the latter!
7. Misao Okawa lives 9 years closer to the Constitution than to the Present
The oldest living person Misao Okawa, aged 120 years, was born in 1898. The signing of the Constitution as part of the Philadelphia convention was in 1787. Now, in 2018 I’d leave the math to you!
8. Two grand children of America’s tenth President are alive today
Twenty years before Lincoln, John Tyler was the US president from 1841-45. Lyon was born to him at 63 years. His grandsons Harrison and Lyon Jr. were born to their Lyon when he was 75 and 71 respectively. The grandchildren are still living strong today.
9. The woolly mammoths witnessed the early pyramids
The last few woolly mammoths who lived till 1650 BC were witness to the Pyramids of Giza which had been there for 1000 years by the time they died out.
10. The fax machine and the Great Migration happened together
Thousands traversed the Oregon Trail in the same year as Alexander Bain invented the fax machine in 1843.
11. Star Wars and the Guillotine co-existed
The Guillotine took its last head on September 10th 1977, while Star Wars was premiered in May that year.
12. Sliced Bread was born after Betty White
Six years after Betty White’s birth in 1922, sliced bread was invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder.
13. The standard for getting an Olympic Gold changed in 56 years
With time, all standards change and so did the standards of the Olympic Gold. In the 56 years between women vault winners Larisa Latynina (1956) for USSR and McKayla Maroney (2012) for the USA you can witness the growth.
14. Today, a smartphone has all that Radio Shack advertised in 1991
Everything that Radio Shack, America’s Technology Store, sold its customers in 1991, is now found in one smartphone.
15. Ottoman rulers could visit the Warner Brothers theater
While the Ottomans dated from 1299-1923, the first Warner Brothers theater was founded in 1903 in Pennsylvania.
16. Harvard University predates Calculus
Newton and Leibniz did not derive calculus until the late 17th century but Harvard was founded as early as 1636.
17. US women didn’t vote the last time Chicago Cubs became world champions
Chicago Cubs won their 2nd and the last World Series in 1908 while US women were allowed to vote during the 1920s.
18. Humans have an 80 millisecond time-lag
The time our brain takes to process any information makes us always live within the past rather than in the present. We recognize any event 80 milliseconds after it has actually occurred.
Another interesting article: Russian Scientists Revealed The Most Powerful Discovery In The History Of Mankind
19. T-Rex was further apart from Stegosaurus than it was from us
While the T-Rex was living only around 65 million years from now, the Stegosaurus is more than 150 million years old. The two lived 85 million years apart.
20. Those over forty-five years witnessed the doubling of world population
Starting from 3,557,000,000 in 1968 and growing at the rate of 200,000 daily, world’s population has now crossed 7,217,000,000.
21. Whales older than Moby Dick are alive
Moby Dick’s publication was in 1851 while some Alaskan bowhead whales are now older than 200 years.
22. Minuscule time for humans in Earth’s history
Humans are a rather ‘new’ event in Earth’s history and occupy a minute 0.004% of its time span.
23. Past, Present and Future are rather simultaneous
Events all around the world are occurring simultaneously and the past, present and future just define characteristics than actual time.
Although we perceive everything ‘in time’, sometimes we have to rethink our very notion of time itself.
Featured Image Source: mau123 © 123RF.com
