Timelines are often used in
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
to help students and researchers with understanding events and trends for a particular subject.
Timelines are particularly useful for studying *science* as they convey a sense of change over time. Wars and social movements are often shown as timelines. Timelines are also useful for
biographiesA biography is a description or account of someone's life and the times, which is usually published in the form of a book or essay, or in some other form, such as a film. An autobiography is a biography of a person's life written or told by that same person...
.
Examples include:
- World War I timeline
The following tables list the main events which happened during World War I.-1914:-1915:-1916:-1917:-1918:-1919:-1920:-Post-1920:...
- Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement
- Timeline of United States history (1930–1949)
- Chronology of Shakespeare's plays
Timelines are also used in the natural world and sciences for subjects such as
biologyBiology is the natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy...
and
geologyGeology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structure, physical properties, dynamics, and history of Earth materials, and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed...
.
- Timeline of Evolution
This timeline of the evolution of life outlines the major events in the development of life on the planet Earth . For a thorough explanatory context, see the history of Earth, and geologic time scale...
- Geologic time scale
The geologic time scale is a chronologic schema relating stratigraphy to time that is used by geologists, paleontologists and other earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth...
- Timeline of the Big Bang
Another type of timeline is used for
project managementProject management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives...
.
Uses of timelines
Timelines are often used in
educationEducation in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual...
to help students and researchers with understanding events and trends for a particular subject.
History
Timelines are particularly useful for studying *science* as they convey a sense of change over time. Wars and social movements are often shown as timelines. Timelines are also useful for
biographiesA biography is a description or account of someone's life and the times, which is usually published in the form of a book or essay, or in some other form, such as a film. An autobiography is a biography of a person's life written or told by that same person...
.
Examples include:
- World War I timeline
The following tables list the main events which happened during World War I.-1914:-1915:-1916:-1917:-1918:-1919:-1920:-Post-1920:...
- Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement
- Timeline of United States history (1930–1949)
- Chronology of Shakespeare's plays
Natural sciences
Timelines are also used in the natural world and sciences for subjects such as
biologyBiology is the natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy...
and
geologyGeology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structure, physical properties, dynamics, and history of Earth materials, and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed...
.
- Timeline of Evolution
This timeline of the evolution of life outlines the major events in the development of life on the planet Earth . For a thorough explanatory context, see the history of Earth, and geologic time scale...
- Geologic time scale
The geologic time scale is a chronologic schema relating stratigraphy to time that is used by geologists, paleontologists and other earth scientists to describe the timing and relationships between events that have occurred during the history of the Earth...
- Timeline of the Big Bang
Project management
Another type of timeline is used for
project managementProject management is the discipline of planning, organizing, and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives...
. In these cases, timelines are used to help team members to know what milestones need to be achieved and under what time schedule.
Time scale
Timelines can take use any time scale, depending on the subject and data. Most timelines use a linear scale, where a unit of distance is equal to a set amount of time. This time scale is dependent on the events in the timeline. A
timeline of evolutionThis timeline of the evolution of life outlines the major events in the development of life on the planet Earth . For a thorough explanatory context, see the history of Earth, and geologic time scale...
can be over millions of years, whereas a timeline about the
September 11, 2001The September 11 attacks, in addition to being a unique act of aggression, constituted a media event on a scale not seen since the advent of civilian global satellite links, round-the-clock television news organizations and the instant worldwide reaction and debate made possible by the Internet...
can take place over minutes. While most timelines use a linear timescale, for very large or small timespans,
logarithmic timelinesA logarithmic timeline is a timeline laid out according to a logarithmic scale. This necessarily implies a zero point and an infinity point, neither of which can be displayed. The most natural zero point is the Big Bang, looking forward, but the most common is the ever-changing present, looking...
use a logarithmic scale to depict time.
Types of timelines
There are many methods of visualizations for timelines. Historically, timelines were static images, and generally drawn or printed on paper. Timelines relied heavily on
graphic designThe term graphic design can refer to a number of artistic and professional disciplines which focus on visual communication and presentation. Various methods are used to create and combine symbols, images and/or words to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. A graphic designer may...
, and the ability of the artist to visualize the data.
MinardCharles Joseph Minard was a French civil engineer noted for his inventions in the field of information graphics.- Biography :...
's map (1861) of Napoleon's invasion of Russia is an example of a non-standard timeline that also uses geography as part of the visualization.
Many timelines are now digital and interactive. They are no longer constrained by standard space limitations. These timelines are now created using downloaded software or through internet websites.
See also
- List of themed timelines
- List of timelines
- Chronology
Chronology is a chronicle or arrangement of events in their order of occurrence in time, such as a timeline. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...
- Living graph
In terms of knowledge representation, a Living Graph is similar to a chronology timeline. However, rather than simply listing events along a horizontal axis to reflect changes over a time, a living graph also places events high or low on vertical axis to reflect something else: for example,...
- Logarithmic timeline
A logarithmic timeline is a timeline laid out according to a logarithmic scale. This necessarily implies a zero point and an infinity point, neither of which can be displayed. The most natural zero point is the Big Bang, looking forward, but the most common is the ever-changing present, looking...
- Detailed logarithmic timeline
This timeline allows one to see the whole history of the universe, the Earth, and mankind in one table.Each row is defined in years ago, that is, years before the present date, with the earliest times at the top of the chart...
- Synchronoptic view
A Synchronoptic view is a graphic display of a number of entities as they proceed through time. A synchronoptic view can be used for many purposes but is best suited to the visual display of history...
- SIMILE
SIMILE is a research project focused on developing tools to increase the interoperability of disparate digital collections. As digital library collections proliferate and their contents expand, they come under increasing pressure to provide for interoperability across collections...
- WikiTimeScale
WikiTimeScale is a wiki displaying historic persons, historic events and other historic matters graphically and interactive on a timeline. It was written in PHP, uses a MySQL database and is open source under the GNU General Public License. Its text is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation...
External links