People Break Down Facts That Make You Question Your Concept Of Time

There are a lot of memes on the internet about the intersection of famous people or historic events or which dinosaurs are closer to humans on the timeline than the dinosaurs they're often depicted with to illustrate our perception of time is skewed.

Reddit user sid_shady34 asked:

"What are some good 'you have no concept of time' facts?"

Appalachian Mountains

"The Appalachian Mountains are so soft and rolling because they're incredibly old. They're so old that they were formed before creatures with endoskeletons existed."

"The Appalachians are older than bones."

~ cheerioincident

"The Appalachians and the Scottish highlands are the same mountain range. The were separated when the Pangaea supercontinent split up."

~ Reddit

Laura Michalski on Unsplash

Greenland Sharks

"Some Greenland sharks alive today are older than the United States. Some are estimated to be over 400 years old, but we know they live to be 250."

~ EquivalentNeat8904

Guillotine

"France's last execution by guillotine and the release of the first Star Wars movie occurred in the same year—1977."

~ pm_me_gnus

Pluto

"Since it's discovery in 1930, Pluto has yet to complete an orbit around the sun. It takes 248 years for one orbit."

~ steveinstow

Did They Help?

"Mammoths were still around while the Great Pyramid at Giza was being built."

~ SnooGrapes2914

Curriculum

"Oxford didn't teach calculus for the first couple of hundred years after it was founded, because Calculus had not been invented yet."

~ Dragonheart132

Flight

"There were only 66 years between the first powered human flight and putting humans on the moon."

~ SnooGrapes2914

Presidential

"The grandson of the 10th president of the United States died in 2025!"

"When John Tyler (US 10th president) was born, George Washington was president, the first President of the US. There were 13 states."

"⁶John Tyler grew up and became a politician. John Tyler became US president from 1841-1845."

"He had 15 children. His son, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. Was born when John was 63 years old in 1853."

"John Tyler’s son, Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr., was 75 years old when his son Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928."

"Harrison Ruffin Tyler died this year in May 2025 at the age of 96."

"From John Tyler’s birth to his grandson Harrison Ruffin Tyler’s death, 235 years passed.
So, the grandson of the tenth president of the US died in May, 2025."

~ markmakesfun

Humanity

"If the entire history of the world was put into 24 hours, humans would begin to exist at 19 seconds to midnight."

~ SnooGrapes2914

Progress

"It took 10,000 years to go from basic hand tools to using the first machines."

"It took less than 1000 years to go from the first machines to the modern industrial era."

"It took less than 100 years to go from only mechanical tools to mostly electric tools."

"It took less than 50 years to go from computers not existing to being miniaturized and in everyone’s pocket."

"Social media as we know it is less than 20 years old."

~ mike_b_nimble

Seconds

"1 million seconds is about 11 days."

"1 billion seconds is about 33 years."

~ SnooGrapes2914

Venutian Calendar

"A day on Venus is longer than a year on Venus."

~ Riley_RedX

Retire‽‽

"The life of Filipino politician Juan Ponce Enrile has overlapped with those of all 17 of the republic's presidents from Emilio Aguinaldo to Ferdinand Marcos Jr.—and at 101, he is still doing government work as the younger Marcos' chief presidential legal counsel."

~ _lechonk_kawali_

Timeline

"Karl Marx published The Communist Manifesto in 1848."

"The American Civil War started in 1861."

"The samurai era of Japan ended in 1877."

"It feels like those events should be in the opposite order."

~ xelrach

Disco

"We are closer to 2070 than to 1970."

~ pereira2088

What would you add?