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“Time is an illusion”, said Albert Einstein. But we humans have been obsessed with time.

Starting from noting our time of birth, organizing every event in life to a specific time, constantly asking what is the time, to the ever-present lament of not having enough time!

Explore this history of how humans created the early time keeping devices and how this defined the way we understand time today and also how it structured our lives itself. Ever wondered how time zones and railways are related?

From sun-dials, water clocks, hour glasses to the new quartz clocks. And in our quest to be more and more precise with our time, we transitioned from observing the movement of the sun to observing the moment of the atoms and electrons now, with the atomic clocks.

And what better way to represent this topic than the art work "Allegory of Good Government" by Ambrogio Lorenzetti

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Art imitates life and life imitates art! A comic book brought to life in an art gallery in Berlin in 2003 and a World championship game the same year in Amsterdam, very much like in the comic.

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Legend has it that the Mongolian horsemen took animal intestines filled with cream to eat on their journeys across the Gobi Desert. As they galloped the cream was vigorously shaken, while at the same time the sub-zero temperatures of the desert froze it, creating something like our ice cream.

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One of us must marry well. Meg didn't, Jo won't, Beth can't yet, so I shall, and make everything okay all round.

Little Women, Loiusa May Alcott

One of the first writers to use the word “ok” in her book! Was pleased finding this piece of trivia researching for the podcast.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1lUhzrWLLXawMnXWGCpY7g?si=wpY8p0_STUSZU-1EF1mJuw

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Have you counted the number of times you use this word “OK” in your conversations today or the times you used it even when you are not OK? You would be surprised to know the stories that trace back as the origins of this short little word it includes US presidents, presidential elections, Native Americans and even slavery. And how did this word that seems to have originated from America come to dominate the world? 

Find out in this episode of the podcast!

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Look at that innocent looking soft toy. Did you know that it has come down in history via a US President and his presidential elections, patents in the US and Germany, the first world war and some of these, are now travelling the world, perhaps more than you and me?

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A game which literally means “I Play” 

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Bali Ogoh ogoh - created using Paint3D

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Lipstick - A small tube of color that has travelled through centuries to come to its current form.

With a history that goes back at least 5000 years, it has travelled through the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome and even finds a mention in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra! It has been branded as a magical device, a social status indicator, a danger to morality, a symbol of feminism, a source of hope, a poison to kill and the Satan itself.

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Not the conventional feminism!