# five-minute hypothesis

> English word · Noun

## Definitions
1. The skeptical hypothesis that the world came into existence, with all apparent signs of history and the past fully-formed, only five minutes ago.

## Etymology
First thought up by and probably coined by Bertrand Russell.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/five-minute-hypothesis