Our birth is out there in space-time. Our death, too, is in space-time. Every moment of our lives is out there, somewhere, in space-time.So says the block universe model of our world.According to the block universe theory, the universe is a giant block of all the things that ever happen at any time and at any place. On this view, the past, present and future all exist — and are equally real.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

It often seems as though where we are "today" is present, and "yesterday" is past, and "tomorrow" is future.It also seems the present moment changes too — after all, tomorrow it will seem as though tomorrow is present, and yesterday it appeared yesterday was present!So from our perspective, it appears that time flows or passes. But in the block universe model, time doesn't flow.In other words, in a block universe, there is no specific present moment, and "past" and "future" moments are relative.

In The Block Universe, Time Doesn't Pass

Think about the idea of "here". I am here. You, while reading this, can truly say "I am here", even though your "here" is different to mine.On the block universe model, talk about the "present" or "now" works just like talk of "here".Remember last week when you said to your friend, who was late arriving for coffee, "now you're here"; or when, long ago, Caesar said, "I am now crossing the Rubicon"?These claims are both true. That's because all it means to talk about the present, or now, is to talk about the place in time where you happen to be.

The “Now” And The “Here”

How can this be?The block has four dimensions: three spatial dimensions — say length, height and width — plus a fourth temporal dimension, or time. Or let's make it easier, by visualising the block model of our world as a three-dimensional rectangle, or cuboid.

The Block

Two of that cuboid's dimensions (let's say height and width) represent two of the universe's three spatial dimensions.Leave out the third spatial dimension in the above diagram (the length) —and replace it with time. At one end of the cuboid is the big bang. At the other is the very last moment of the universe. Maybe it's a big crunch.The cuboid is filled with every event that ever happens. Where these events are in the cuboid represents their location in space-time. All events, including your birth and death, and this very moment as you read these words, exist somewhere in the block.

*All* Of Time And Space

Bearing this in mind, it is possible to see how to make sense of the idea of past and future. Just as on this model “now” picks out whatever time I happen to be located at, “past” picks out any time (or events at those times) that are earlier than my location, and “future” picks out any times or events that are later than my location.

Location, Location, Location

We’ll get out of our time machine and start walking around. We’ll breathe the air and chat to people.Obviously, this will have effects on the time we travel to. We’ll tread on ants; we’ll talk to people from that time; we’ll pat horses, and feed donkeys and so on.We’ll act, in the past, in the sorts of ways we act in the present. But we won't be changing the past. Just as when we eat cornflakes instead of toast tomorrow we am not changing the future, we’re just making the future the way it is, when we travel to the past we don't change it, we just make it the way it is, and always has been.

What Will Happen If We Travel To The Past?

If time is just another dimension, a lot like the spatial dimensions, does that mean we can travel in time?The short answer is yes.Of course, things are way more complicated than that. Travelling in time is clearly much more difficult than travelling in space. It might be very technologically costly to time travel, so perhaps it's not really something that, practically speaking, we can do.But it's certainly possible.

Does That Mean We Can Travel In Time

No. That would create a contradiction, and there are no contradictions.Remember, on the block universe model, the past is no different than the future or the present.Everything is relative: what is past to us, will be future to someone else.

So, If We Can Travel In Time, Can We Change The Past?

Nothing a time traveller does changes anything in the block. Instead, what the traveller does at any time makes that time, and later times, the way they are.That means that we know that some things we attempt to do in the past, fail. We know that Hitler rose to power in the 1930s, so we know that if our time travelling future selves try to prevent this from happening, they fail.But that doesn't show that our time traveling selves don't succeed in doing lots of things in the past. For all we know, the reason the past is the way it is, is in part due to the presence of time travelers.

Making The Past, The Past. Keyword: *Making*

We already know that travelling very fast will result in time dilation, so we know it's possible to travel into the future just by travelling very fast.We can travel quite a way into the future if we can travel at some reasonable percentage of the speed of light. We also know how to travel into the past. We can do that by using wormholes, which are short cuts through space-time.

Speed: Light. Route: Wormhole. 

Let's recap.What we do tomorrow makes tomorrow the way it is, and the way it always has been. What we do in the past makes the past time the way it is, and always has been.If we travel to the past, we are part of the past. Importantly, we were always part of the past.The events in the block are there for all time: they do not change. So, as a time traveller, it's not as though we suddenly appear at a past time. It's always been the case that we were located at that past time.

Confused yet?

Since we are always located wherever we are (that's trivially true), everyone is located in the present, just as everyone is located at the place they call “here”.According to the block universe view, time or temporal relations of “earlier than” and “later than” exist. These relations hold regardless of where anyone is located.So, suppose Bert the dinosaur is located earlier than Sally the dog. That relation between Bert and Sally holds, regardless of whether we are located earlier than Bert or later than Sally.

“Earlier Than” And “Later Than”

Would you time-travel just to make things as they are, if you could not change things as they are? Not really a question. 

The block universe theory says the past, present and future all exist — and are equally real — in a four-dimensional block where the passing of time is an illusion.

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The Block Universe Theory, Where Time Travel Is Possible But Time Passing Is An Illusion

Many people think handshaking is a modern way of welcoming, wishing, or dealing. But handshake was coming from very late history.Archeologists found many old stuff like paintings, sculptures of people shaking hands

Coming from history

Hence we mentioned it was from history, it was invented in the times of Kings.Past then people used to carry swords, they are tied in the left side of a person, so that he can easily pull it out with his right hand when needed.

Reason

Since the sword is always with them, they thought it's better to shake his right hand with another person's right hand to show that they are not going to attack him, since my hand is with you.

The WIshing

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

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Learning & Education

Why Do We Shake Hands With People?

Movie halls did amazingly well in the ’50s and the early 60s only to see a decline in ticket (and popcorn) sales due to something new in the market: The Television.
Popcorn machines started to make their way into households and while the sales were down, popcorn was now associated with movies, especially the yellow popcorn which expanded more and had the buttery-yellow tint.

Popcorn When Television When Mainstream

TV and other media eventually lived alongside the movie-going experience.
Popcorn is tied to movies as a ritualistic experience, and many luxury theatre owners provide gourmet-style popcorn to its patrons, along with other high-end snacks(with huge markups, of course) to make the movie-watching experience a complete one.

Modern Movie Experience

Popcorn is admittedly sold at a huge markup in movies, as they make about 85 percent profits through its sales.
They are cheap to make at scale and are sold at prices that make them a primary profit machine for movie theatres.

Popcorn Is Everything To Movies

<ul>
<li>When movie theatres started showing movies with sound, the audience increased, as now people didn’t have to read the titles from the movies.</li>
<li>Popcorn by then was a cheap snack outside of theatres, with a bag costing only about 5 to 10 cents.</li>
<li>Moviegoers started buying them before entering the theatres, forcing the owners to halt this practice and restrict the entry of the snack in the theatre.</li>
<li>Eventually, the theatre owners realized they could sell popcorn inside the theatres and earn huge profits.</li>
<li>Many theatres were saved from going bankrupt solely on the ability to sell the crunchy snacks along with movie tickets.</li>
<li>By 1945, 50% of all popcorn that was consumed in the United States was eaten at the movie halls. The owners even used jingles and commercials to entice audiences to ‘go to the lobby’ during the movie interval.</li>
</ul>

Popcorn: The Entry Into Movie Theatres

Popped from a strain of corn which is starchy and a hard surface, popcorn was the first variant of maize that came from Central America thousands of years ago.
The sound of popping corn was entertaining, and by the 1950s, popped corn exploded, and was available in circuses and fairs.

A History Of Popcorn

Surprisingly, popcorn was not initially available at movie theatres, which were catering to a ‘highbrow clientele’ and didn’t want to spoil their expensive carpets and rugs.
They also thought that the crunchy sound of snacking on popcorn would distract the audience from the movies, which were mostly silent at that time.

Popcorn: Banned At The Movie Theatre

The movie theater's most popular concession wasn't always associated with the movies—in fact, it used to be explicitly banned

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Food

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Marketing & Sales

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Movies & Shows

Why Do We Eat Popcorn at the Movies?

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after the first European encounter with them.

What's This?

<ul><li>The COVID-19🦠😷</li><li>The Spanish Flu-all the focus was on WWl and the politics of it</li><li>Hitler and Holocaust</li><li>Collapse of Communism-none of the thousands of experts predicted it</li><li>Economic crisis of 2008-went far beyond a normal recession-once it happened economists and politicians were surprised at how few tools they had to solve the problem</li><li>Dot com bubble burst</li><li>Hiroshima, Nagasaki</li></ul>

Few Real Life Black Swan Events

The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain:<ul><li>The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance, and technology.</li><li>The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities).</li><li>The psychological biases that blind people, both individually and collectively, to uncertainty and to a rare event's massive role in historical affairs.</li></ul>

Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Theory

Discover the world of business and economics.

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Economics

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Problem Solving

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Society, Arts & Culture

The Black Swan Theory!

An explosion of user-generated content happened gradually, mainly due to the podcasting medium being based on an open web standard: RSS technology. Podcasts could easily be located and downloaded by the public using various online services and apps.Another major factor was the proliferation of podcast creation tools, most importantly the Spotify-owned Anchor(a free service), which lowered the entry barrier for creators, leading to millions of new podcasts every year.

Podcasts Gone Mainstream

<ul>
<li>Podcasts were originally thought of in 2005 by Apple as a way to increase content in their iPod devices and the iTunes software.</li>
<li>Steve Jobs pitched podcasts as ‘TiVo for Radio’, audio content that could be time-shifted to listen anytime.</li>
<li>Apple wanted to entice its customers by offering a huge amount of free audio content but could only manage a niche audience at that time.</li>
<li>Later in 2014, the purple podcast icon on Apple devices became the default way for people to consume audio content, leading to tremendous audience growth and the resurrection of podcasts as a medium.</li>
</ul>

Podcasts: The Beginning

As Apple shifts from being a hardware company selling iPods and iPhones to a content company with Apple Music, Apple TV+ and other offerings, the podcasting space is the next battleground for the company who invented the medium. Music and podcast giant Spotify has changed the game and is one of the main reasons for the explosive rise of podcasts.

Podcasts: The Medium Gets A Big Boost

The current vibrancy in the podcasting universe is due to ultra-niche offerings, a diversity in voices and a huge amount of creative space in the open standard.
The medium which exploded due to it having no gatekeepers incharge, is now turning into a walled garden with premium paid content, where exclusive deals, media network contracts and big money is involved.

Podcasting: From Open To Exclusive

In 2021, Apple again sets its attention on podcasts. The recent ‘Spring Loaded’ event had the company creating the technical infrastructure for paid subscriptions and exclusive content. Creators will charge directly from the customer and pay a 30 percent revenue cut to Apple.
The mercurial rise of Spotify, which surpassed Apple in the United Kingdom, and its exclusive deals with popular podcasters(Joe Rogan show, for instance) are the main reasons for ‘absentee landlord’ Apple to return for a counter-strike.

Podcasting: The Return Of Apple

Joe Rogan has made podcasting the largest media, much bigger than traditional broadcasting. Let us explore what's in it.

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Podcasts

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Personal Development

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Technology & The Future

The Podcasting Ecosystem

Apple recently announced that it is creating technical infrastructure for paid podcast subscriptions. For Spotify, making exclusive podcast deals with high-profile talent has been a means to draw ears into its ecosystem and keep them there. 

The Block Universe Theory, Where Time Travel Is Possible But Time Passing Is An Illusion

Why Do We Shake Hands With People?

Why Do We Eat Popcorn at the Movies?

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

The Black Swan Theory!

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The Block Universe Theory, Where Time Travel Is Possible But Time Passing Is An Illusion

Why Do We Shake Hands With People?

Why Do We Eat Popcorn at the Movies?

It's time to Read like a Pro.

The Black Swan Theory!

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.