Time Horizon
- First, read the blog entry Nine Time Horizons – Connecting the Past to the Future from 2009-04-30
Definition of Time Horizon
A time horizon is understood here as a cognitive structure in which planning and thinking about the future (and the past) can be effectively accomplished. The idea is that there is no intuition regarding an arbitrary time frame, but that we can make sense of things in approximate range groupings.
Time horizon past events
1,000 years ago
Longest-living human empires and institutions, some species; organizations and organisms
- 476 (1533 years ago) End of Roman Empire in the West (begun 27 BCE)
- 609 (1400 years ago) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam#Muhammad Muhammad began receiving revelations, giving birth to Islam]
- 800 (1209 years ago) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee Coffee invented]
- 1000 approximate date for when Irish begin using last names
- 1066 (963 years ago) Normans invade England
- 1440 (569 years ago) Gutenberg assembled printing press
- 1463 (546 years ago) End of Roman Empire in the East (begun 27 BCE)
200 years ago
Stunning differences in human knowledge, social organization, and technological advancements
- 1750 (241 years ago) approximate date of acceleration from marginal economic and human population growth; 1 billion population worldwide (6.6 billion in 2009)
- 1776 (233 years ago) US Declaration of Independence from Great Britain
- 1809 slavery exists; no germ theory; before the industrial revolution; no electric lights; no cars
40 years ago
Working career length; two human generations; legal and social values horizon
- 1945 (64 years ago) World War II ends
- 1969 (40 years ago) Man lands on the moon
- 1959-1975 (50-34 years ago) Vietnam war
- 1979 (30 years ago) First cellular phone system deployed in Japan
- 1991 (18 years ago) HTTP/HTML web protocols invented
8 years ago
- 1998 (11 years ago) Google founded
- 2001 (8 years ago) Terrorists attacked the United States using four commercial jet aircraft as suicide bombs
2 years ago
- 2007 (2 years ago) [http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21303808 China surpassed USA in largest number of Internet users]
4 months ago
1 month ago
1 week ago
Medium-term memory
2 days ago
Recent past; dream horizon
Now
The present time in hours and minutes; a 10 hour time band; one work day
Time horizon future events
2 days from now
48 hours; two sleep cycles; today and tomorrow (today and yesterday)
1 week from now
Workweek cycle
1 month from now
Rent and lease payments due
4 months from now
Financial reporting quarter; school semester length; season
2 years from now
How long you will have a new cell phone or computer, if bought today; years to get an Associates degree, a Bachelors degree (after Associates), or a Masters degree (after Bachelors)
- 2011 (2 years from now) Trailing economic indicators such as unemployment rate may reverse course at this point (from the 2008 recession)
- 2012 (3 years from now) 1.5 billion mobile devices will be able to access the Internet; there will be 2 billion people with Internet access (up from 1 billion in 2004) and $1.2 trillion in online purchasing.
8 years from now
- 2016 (7 years) Next US President elected (presupposing President Obama serves a full 2 terms)
- 2019 Pranav Mistry and Pattie Mae’s Sixth Sense augmented reality interface may be available by then
- 2017-2020 (8-11 years) Medicare fund depleted
- 2021 (12 years) Internet Explorer would have no users if current linear decline in market share were to continue
40 years from now
- 2037-2042 (28-35 years) Social Security fund depleted
- 2048 (39 years) According to James Carville in his 2009 book, the Republican party will emerge from its status as a regional party to challenge the Democratic party for the Legislature
- 2063 (54 years) Star Trek universe warp drive invented
- Working career length; two human generations
200 years from now
- 2245 (236 years) Star Trek universe U.S.S. Enterprise launched
1,000 years from now
- …
No related posts.
RSS reader
Subscribe via email
Facebook
Flickr
Google
LinkedIn
Twitter
YouTube
Leave a Reply