TIMEWAVE ZERO 2 — HELP

1. What This Is

Timewave Zero is Terence McKenna’s “novelty theory” — a speculative theoretical model proposing that the universe moves through cycles of increasing complexity (“novelty”) and entrenchment (“habit”), governed by a mathematical wave derived from the King Wen sequence of the I Ching. This site is an interactive, DOS-homage reboot of Peter Meyer’s original Timewave Zero software. It is an art piece and an interactive model of a mathematical curiosity. Novelty theory has no empirical basis in physics or history, and this tool should not be used as a forecasting instrument.

2. Reading the Chart — The Y Axis (Novelty)

The vertical axis plots the raw timewave value, which represents the degree of “habit” or entrenchment at a given moment. A low value means high novelty; a high value means high habit. The wave descends toward zero as it approaches the zero point on 21 December 2012, where it reaches its minimum — maximum novelty. In other words, novelty increases downward on this chart. When you see the wave dip, novelty is increasing; when the wave rises, habit is dominant.

3. Reading the Chart — The X Axis (Time)

The horizontal axis is time: the past is on the left, the future on the right. The zero point — where the wave reaches 0, its theoretical terminus — is 21 December 2012, the date McKenna chose as the eschaton based on the Mayan Long Count calendar. Dates after 2012 (including today) are shown as a mirror of the approach to that point. McKenna’s theory only defines the wave leading up to the zero point; the post-2012 portion is a visualization choice and is not part of the forward theory. Treat it accordingly.

4. The Markers

Several named historical dates are marked on the chart as vertical lines for reference:

• ◆ Zero Point — 21 Dec 2012: the theoretical terminus; wave value = 0; maximum novelty.
• ◆ Apollo 11 — 20 Jul 1969: first crewed lunar landing.
• ◆ Trinity — 16 Jul 1945: the first nuclear weapons test.
• ◆ 1492 CE: Columbus’s first voyage; European contact with the Americas.
• ◆ Year 1 CE: the conventional start of the Common Era.

5. Controls

Mouse

• Scroll wheel — zoom in/out centered on the cursor position.
• Click + drag — pan left or right along the time axis.
• Hover — live readout of the date and wave value (novelty level) at the cursor.

Touch

• Pinch — zoom.
• Drag — pan.
• Tap — show readout at that position.

Keyboard

Zoom Presets & Navigation

• [ 1Y ] [ 10Y ] [ 100Y ] [ 1KY ] [ 10KY ] — preset zoom spans centered on the current view.
• [ GOTO ] — enter any date to jump the center of the view to that date.
• [ SHARE ] (bottom-right) — copies a deep link to the current viewport to the clipboard. The URL encodes the exact time window, so anyone opening the link sees the same view.

6. The Math

The timewave is built from the King Wen sequence — the traditional ordering of the 64 I Ching hexagrams. A set of 384 numbers (six lines × 64 hexagrams) is derived from the first-difference transitions between adjacent hexagrams in that sequence. This site uses the Sheliak (TW1) number set, a mathematically revised version published by John Sheliak in 1996 following the “Watkins Objection”, which identified arithmetic inconsistencies in the original Kelley data set. Sheliak’s revision was reportedly preferred by McKenna himself.

The wave is self-similar under scaling by a factor of 64: the shape of the wave over any span is reproduced at 1/64 scale within each sub-interval. This fractal self-similarity is the structural basis of McKenna’s claim that “time is fractal.” The wave is computed as a weighted sum over nested copies of the 384-number set, each scaled to the relevant time unit (day, month, year, etc.), summed to produce a single novelty value per point in time. See About for sources and implementation references.