The Universe in a year!

The American astronomer Carl Sagan (1934-96) first suggested a "cosmic calendar" as a way of helping people understand the history of the Universe. he put everything into the scale of calendar year: the galaxies are formed over nine months and the Earth appears in September. All human history is crowded into the last five minutes of the last dayof the year. Recent time has to be divided into seconds and fractions of a second. So everything that happened over the fractions of a second. So everything that happened over the last 475 years place in less than the last second of the last minute of the year.

The World in a single day
In one day (24 hours or 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds) the world turns once on its axis. During that time, on average:

358,522 People are born
155,012 People are die
203,510 are added to the world's population.

Hour:minutes:second/fractions of second
11:59.50.487 pm Great Pyramid is built (2520 BC)
11:59.55.333 pm Great wall of China is built (215 BC)
11:59.56.785 pm Roman Empire falls (AD 476)
11:59.58.026 pm Battle of Hastings (1066)
11:59.58.921 pm Columbus lands in America (1492)
11:59.59.128 pm Shakespeare writes his first plays (1588-90)
11:59.59.874 pm World War II ends (1945)
11:59.59.891 pm Mount Everest is climbed (1953)
11:59.59.924 pm Man lands on the Moon (1969)
Midnight Today

Date/time Event
1 Jan (midnight) Big Bang-Universe forms
15 Mar First stars and galaxies form
1 May Milky Way galaxy forms
8 Sep Sun forms
9 Sep Solar system forms
12 Sep Earth forms
13 Sep Moon forms
20 Sep Earth atmosphere forms
1 Oct Earliest known life on Earth
7 Oct Earliest known fossils
18 Dec First many-celled life forms
19 Dec First fish
21 Dec First land plants; first insects
23 Dec First reptiles
24 Dec First dinosaurs
26 Dec First mammals
27 Dec First birds
28 Dec First flowering plants
28 Dec Dinosaurs extinct
31 Dec Homo sapiens (modern human) appears

A Pair of Palindromes

Multiply 21978 by 4
Now see if you can find a pair of palindromes.


Ans: 1) 4 x 21978 = 87912. The number is reversed.
2) 49

Brothers and Sisters

A family I know has several children. Each boy in this family has as many sisters as brothers but each girl has twice as many brothers as sisters.
How many brothers and sisters are there?

Ans: Since the boys have as many brothers as sisters, there must be 1 boy more than the number of girls. If we try 2 and 1,3 and 2, and 4 and 3, we will find that 4 boys and 3 girls is the solution to fulfil the requirement that each girl has twice as many brothers and sisters.

Tall Men Next Door

Next door to me live four brothers of different heights. Their average height is 74 inches, and the difference in height amongst the first three men is two inches. The difference between the third and the fourth man is six inches.
Can you tell how tall is each brother?

Ans: The first brother is 70 inches tall, 72, the third 74 and the fourth brother 80 inches tall.

Rule of Three

What is meant by the rule of three?

Ans: The rule of three means proportion.
In the words if there numbers are given when four numbers are in proportion, this is a method of finding one of them.

Smallest Integer

Can you name the smallest integer that can be written with two digits?

Ans: The smallest integer that can be written with two digits is not 10 as one may assume. But it is expressed as follows:
1/1 2/2 3/3 4/4 etc upto 9/9