Timewave Zero, also known as Novelty Theory, is a pseudoscientific theory that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of "novelty" in the universe as an inherent quality of time. It is an idea conceived of and discussed at length by psychonaut philosopher Terence McKenna from the early 1970s until his death in the year 2000.[citation needed] The early 20th-century philosopher Alfred North Whitehead had defined this concept as an increase in the universe's intuitively perceived interconnectedness[1][2].

According to McKenna, when "novelty" is graphed over time, a fractal waveform[clarification needed] known as timewave zero or simply the timewave results. The graph shows at what times, but never at what locations, novelty is supposedly increasing or decreasing over any span of time from a few days to tens of millennia[3].

McKenna claimed that the basic struggle of the Universe is not one between good and evil but between habit and novelty[4][5].

According to McKenna, the timewave itself is a complex mathematical formula derived from his interpretation and analysis of numerical patterns in the King Wen sequence of the I Ching (the ancient Chinese Book of Changes).[6][clarification needed] McKenna interpreted the apparently fractal nature and resonances of the wave, as well as his theory of the I Ching's configuration, to show that the events of any given time are recursively related to the events of other times.[7]

On this basis, McKenna originally chose the date of ultimate singularity—December 21, 2012—by looking for a particularly "novel" event in recent history, and using this as the beginning of what he conceived to be a final 67.29 year cycle; the event he chose was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which gave an end-date in mid-November of 2012, but when he discovered the proximity of this date to the end of the current 13-baktun cycle of the Mayan calendar on 21 December 2012, he adjusted the end date to fit.[8][9]