The timewave can be read as an index of how much of what is occurring at any given time is novel or new. This could literally be any event that happens. The more unexpected or original, the more novelty the event has. A very novel event could be the invention of the telephone, the Asian tsunami of 2004, or the events of 9/11. The timewave doesn't tell you specifically what will happen or where, but it does describe how novel it needs to be. By looking at the repeating patterns and their corresponding novelty, the idea is that we are able to predict when interesting events will occur but not necessarily what will be happening. The timewave is not deterministic, but it does suggest that change itself can be quantified and predicted.

The accelerating changes in our world over the last few decades contain many good examples of novelty. From the invention of the motor car to the popularity of Facebook, new social and technological forms are appearing more and more rapidly. Change is increasing and this is predicted by the timewave. As a model of time, it embraces the zeitgeist of the modern world far better than the arrow of linear time, with its origins in the medieval world of Christian theology.

Fractal Resonance

The timewave suggests that different periods of history have resonance with each other. This is because the timewave exhibits self-similarity, one of the defining characteristics of a fractal. This means that different parts of the wave repeat the same sort of pattern but at different scales. For example, some commentators suggest that the timewave for the period of World War II, 1939–1945, closely resembles that for the period 2007–2012. Both are characterized by a major spike toward the end of the period. In the case of World War II, McKenna equates this with the denotation of the first atomic bomb at Hiroshima. In the case of 2012, events are likely to be even more dramatic.

McKenna uses the bombing of Hiroshima as the historical anchor point for the timewave. From this single point, the timewave is projected as an overlay onto history. After this key point, it takes the timewave exactly one period of 67.3 years to reach closure. This made the original end date of the timewave November 17, 2012. When McKenna discovered the end date of the Mayan calendar was just a few weeks later, he simply changed the end point to fit this new insight. This means the original anchor point is somewhat lost, as the whole wave moves forward by twenty-eight days. There is no definitive or empirical reason why the timewave should finish on December 21, 2012. For McKenna, the end of the Mayan calendar just seems to fit in well with the sort of unprecedented event the timewave is predicting.