A Different Timeline of Earth

One difficulty in teaching biology was explaining the history of Earth.  How do you effectively show 4.6 billion years to 15-year-olds?  I have used timelines, football fields, and even a piano to represent deep time.  There was a great TED talk on the subject as well.

I think that I like this one the best.  The details would be hard to show, but everyone would understand it.  Just use your arm!

It would be like a built in cheat sheet.  Everyone can bring their arm to the test.  I don't know if it would work, but it is an interesting way to think about time.

The Time-Lapsed Sky

Watching this video by Terje Sorgjerd reminds me of the awesomeness of the sky.  Here we get to see it in two ways a city-dweller like me never will: from the clear view of El Teide, the tallest peak in Spain, and time-lapsed over several days.  You will see the movement of the stars and the Milky Way Galaxy as you observe the Earth spinning on its own axis.

A lot is going on here, but enjoy this video and may it bring you a nice peaceful day at the end of a long week.

The RSA Animates Zimbardo's Talk on Time

The Royal Society for the Arts hosts many important speakers on a wide variety of talks.  Their new trick is to draw pictures on a whiteboard depicting the message of the speaker.  I have put up some other examples before.  In this talk, renowned psychologist, Philip Zimbardo describes the secret powers of time.  As humans, we have six different perspectives on time derived from our cultures and exemplified in our lives.

For instance, Protestants tend to be future-oriented.  Do good things now to be rewarded in heaven and don't do bad things so you don't go to hell.  In this tradition, we see school as a future-oriented endeavor.  Do well in school now, get into a good college, get a good job, and get into the best retirement home around.  But not everyone is future-oriented.  Present-oriented people may be intensely pleasure-seeking (hedonistic) or focusing on the here and now.  I have heard many sermons attacking the dangers of hedonism (usually misrepresenting atheism as necessarily hedonistic), and pushing the ideal of focusing on the future.

I wonder where else these divisions can be seen.  Are scientists future-oriented while historians past oriented?  Are liberals present- or future oriented while conservatives past-oriented?  Lots of strands come out of this talk, which makes it a good one.