Friday 26 February 2010

Age and Time - Silverback's theory of Relativity

I find mathematics a fascinating subject. Having come 1st in the year-end school examinations back in 1957 maybe I'm mathematically gifted?  After all I can still remember how to calculate trigonometry ratios ...something that leaves my grandchildren surprisingly unimpressed??
I think it's the reassurance of maths that I find so satisfying. To be able to say with complete certainty that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees.   Which is why I found a recent edition of BBC TV's Horizon To Infinity and Beyond a bit unsettling.  The write up did offer a warning..
"Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you. Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity."
And the story was told by a group of extremely clever mathmeticians who discussed amongst other things:-  The largest number...something called a googolplex. Is there such a thing as infinity? Is space infinite? If infinity exists, why in theory a monkey should be able to type the complete works of Shakespeare!!
With much respect to the charismatic "Taffy" Evans who taught me back in 1957 I don't think my GCE "O Level" fully empowered me to participate in this lecture. And although totally engaged by the wonderfully malevolant Steven Berkoff's linking questions and summaries, I did lose the plot occasionally...but not infinitely!
But then I had one of those "Eureka" moments! Mathematics is also about theorising on the unfathomable. And the programme has inspired me to start work on my own theory of age and time relativity... to be developed around these "unfathomables:"
- As a year is made up of 365 ever slowing revolutions of the earth each year is actually getting longer.
- The years only seem shorter as you get older because when you were 6 years old a year was 1/6th of your whole life, whereas when you're 60 it is only 1/60th.
- People who are several years younger than us seem our age, whereas people that are our age seem so much older than us.

So mathematical and social reasoning proves it. It's all to do with comparison. Forget how old you are, and time and ageing will slow down. Quod Erat Demonstrandum

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