Kalyani Tupkary

The timeline seems among the most inescapable metaphors we have. And yet, in its modern form, with a single axis and a regular, measured distribution of dates, it is a relatively recent invention. Understood in this strict sense, the timeline is not even 250 years old. How this could be possible, what alternatives existed before, and what

Time isn’t like the other senses, Eagleman says. Sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing are relatively easy to isolate in the brain. They have discrete functions that rarely overlap: it’s hard to describe the taste of a sound, the color of a smell, or the scent of a feeling. … But a sense of time is threaded through everything we perceive. 

What do people need to understand? What are the edges of the map or diagram? What are you not mapping or diagramming? Where will other people see this map or diagram (e.g., on a wall, in a presentation, on paper)?

To underscore their modernity, filing cabinets were called ‘equipment,’ ‘appliances,’ and ‘machines’ — not furniture.

You make it (somewhat) arbitrary. Divide the world into 24 time zones, and  slowly force people  — often through colonial might — to abide by one, standard time for an entire wedge. Do it in the name of commerce, of travel, of ease of communication, of  ease . Fast-forward a century and a half, and this rational/irrational time is just the way