TENET: The Intersection of Time and Space

Опубликовано: 11 Май 2025
на канале: 87 Seconds

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The unique history behind the word TENET may give us clues as to what the upcoming movie will be about.

TENET isn’t gibberish.

It’s a Latin word that roughly translates into “one who holds”. So in the case of Christopher Nolan's upcoming film, it’s likely referring to the main character who holds mastery over the flow of time.

But you already knew that. What you didn’t know however is that the word TENET also has an interesting history.

It’s not just an ordinary palindrome- a word that’s spelled the same forwards as it’s spelled backward. TENET is also the very center of the Sator Square (sometimes referred to as the Rotas Square because you know.... it's the palindrome for sator).
This is a physical ancient square of 5 Latin words that are 5 letters long which contains 20 palindromes. Reading the words left to right is a palindrome. Reading the words right to left is a palindrome. Reading the words up and down and down and up are palindromes. It can be rotated 180 degrees and still contain all the properties of a Palindrome.

You can even reflect the direction you’re reading at a right angle to form the word. It’s a bit hard to put into words, so I’ve drawn it out here. Take Opera for example, which means “to perform an action”. You’ve got the standard Palindrome characteristics of going up and down, but you can also spell out the word if you make a right angle turn at certain points in the square.

I drew it out in the video above since the concept is pretty hard to explain in words.

This has led me to believe that the upcoming Christopher Nolan movie isn’t just a simple “going back in time to save the word from war” that many people believe it is.

Instead, just like how the Sator Square consists of the word TENET at the intersection multiple palindromes going in different directions, the movie TENET will be about the main character at the intersection of multiple timelines flowing in different directions.

TENET: The intersection of words and time

Timeline:

0:00 Basic Info
0:17 Common Theory
0:40 TENET Defined
1:00 TENET (History)
1:11 Sator Square
2:00 What TENET will really be about