Relativityof time

Have you ever wondered what humans could do in 1 minute? Or in 1 hour? Has it changed through the ages?

See the stories

Pick
30 berries

1 minute, more or less, assuming a picker kept a decent pace and had no interactions with a hungry Smilodon.

Hunt
a squirrel

Tracking down a squirrel wasn’t that hard. But shooting one might have been a challenge for a beginning hunter.

Portion
a mammoth

Even with the super-paleolithic butchery skills, cutting 6 tons of meat using sharpened stones takes time!

Take
a 152 mile
walk

From San Francisco to Oroville or from London to Chesterfield in 7 days. Humans were in good shape those days. Smilodon’s roar could be motivating.

Hunt
a mammoth

Mammoths are not good at hiding. But finding the best opportunity to throw the final punch takes more time than shooting a squirrel.

Eat
a mammoth

A human can eat a ton of food per year, so a small family of six homo sapiens could live on a mammoth for 12 months!

Milk a pot
of milk

A skilled farmer (or his skilled wife) could milk a cow in less than 20 minutes. A fine dairy cow delivered even 30 liters of milk a day!

Weave
a basket

Weaving a basket in just 1 hour? The secret lies in agile fingers and knowledge handed down from parent to offspring.

Break off
500 stones

Preparing tons of stone blocks was a hard and time-consuming job. Not to mention all the rolling, pushing and heavy-lifting.

Travel
over 200 miles

A week-long trip in a wheeled cart was tiring. Gladly, the horses and a wagon driver took over the duties, while a traveler could take a nap.

Breathe
out 30 kg
of CO2

This hasn’t, but other things have changed in the last forty centuries. Fuel. Factories. Farming. Waste...

Produce
bricks to
build a
village

In 1 year, one brickmaker could provide bricks for 50 houses (around 70m2 each, one storey — pretty impressive, by ancient Egyptians’ standards).

Write
14 signs
on paper

The Chinese had already used paper and learnt to scribble 14 signs per minute. Europe had to wait another 1000 years for paper to come...

Travel
30 miles

30 miles in 1 hour? Sure, with a chariot and two strong stallions, galloping 30 mph. That kind of journey seemed insane, but not for Romans!

Fight
a battle
and run
42 km

The first marathoner run from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory. Unfortunately, to become a legend, one must pay the highest price.

Learn
the alphabet

With a teacher strict enough everyone could learn at least three letters a day.

Harvest
grain for
a year’s
supply

People had to harvest crops by hand to stockpile the food for the rest of the year. No wonder they worshipped gods of rain back in the days.

Build
1/10th of
the Colosseum

10 years to raise the famous Roman landmark.
Well, it was quite a building.

Shoot
1 bullet

It took around 1 minute for an average Renaissance soldier to load his musket and pull the trigger (and during rain, the gun might not fire at all). Every minute counts when fighting for life.

Be amazed by
Copernicus thesis

It took Copernicus 1 hour to explain his thesis and turn the world upside down. Surprise, it’s the Sun, not the Earth, that is at the center of the universe.

Print
3000 book
pages

Finally, the invention of the printing press allowed to produce thousands of books per year. And so the Dark Ages ended.

Perform
in 6 plays

To play, or not to play, that was the question. Elizabethan England went nuts about the theatre.

Travel
from
Europe to
America

Columbus sailed across the sea for many days before he reached the New Land. He would have made it in 1 month, if it wasn’t for the lunch breaks.

Create a
masterpiece

Renaissance art required patience. Renaissance artist required tons of patience.

Create a
masterpiece

Contemporary art doesn’t require patience. However, it still requires years of studies and practice to create a masterpiece in 1 minute.

Travel
600 miles

7 miles above the ground, surrounded by more than 4000 liters of an extremely flammable liquid. It’s an exciting journey.

Print
over 6000
books

An overwhelming number. Today people need more time to choose a book to read, than the ancestors to print one.

Harvest
35 000
tons of
wheat

Times have changed. It can be done by one man with one combine-harvester.

Produce
7 tons
of CO2

Believe it or not, CO2 released to the atmosphere every month by a regular family from a developed country can weigh an equivalent of an adult elephant.

Build
2 houses

It’s not an ancient-Egyptian standard anymore. 4000 years ago people could build one home in a couple of days. Today, it takes 6 months to raise a typical American house.

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Time Tracker

And what can YOU do in 1 minute? Or in 1 hour? Let’s find out!

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