Time has throughout history been represented in different ways, each with its own virtues and drawbacks. Though the timeline is by far the most common way to represent longer stretches of time today, it is not the only way, and perhaps not the best way. Especially the way events affect each other can be difficult to capture on a timeline, while, similarly, events that happen at the same time can look like they’re interlinked, when in fact they are not. It also doesn’t show cyclical events as intuitively as eg a circle, and it is almost impossible to compare things of massively different timescales and actually get anything out of it.

This text reminded me of an article I read at the start of this year, about “What the year looks like”. The author had reached out to more than 40 000 people through one of the websites of Norway’s largest broadcaster, and asked “What mental image do you have of the year? And more specifically, if it’s circular, where would you place December and March?” It turned out that 70% of the participants had an even circle for their model of the year, while another 9% imagined an ellipse. Of those 79%, there was surprisingly little agreement of both the placement of months and the direction of time. When that many different models of the year can work, I think it would be strange if we have found the best way of visualizing time in general. (Article in Norwegian: https://nrkbeta.no/2018/01/01/fasit-slik-ser-aret-ut/ )