Time is relative to size

[Lightmeow]

Ok, I am developing a new theory that I think could work, but it needs a lot of work.

 

So the short version: The smaller something is, the faster time goes, and the shorter it's life. I will need to explain this more now.

 

So, we have a fly. Doesn't live that long. Now this is something I will need to study more, but, does it live a full life, relative to humans? How many times a day does a fly eat? If my theory is right, then the average fly will have eaten as many meals as a average human. That is what I am getting at. Tomorrow, I should have a better explanation, but from those facts you could draw some conclusions. Of course, there are some holes, like why does a turtle live as long as it does?

 

More thinking for me

 

Joshua

[Delta1212]

Just for reference for you:

 

If I generously assume that humans have a lifespan of only 60 years and take the long end of the fly's lifespan at 30 days rather than the low end at 15, a fly would have to eat a meal every 90 seconds for its entire life, non-stop, in order to eat the same number of meals as a human.

[DevilSolution]

The way we and flies perceive time will certainly differ but what about the cells that are in both the fly and the human, how is time perceived by them? How about a blade of light??

 

Time is a strange concept indeed.

[ajb]

the short version: The smaller something is, the faster time goes, and the shorter it's life.

Generally it has been observed that larger animals live longer than smaller animals. There has been some suggestion this is to do with heart rate and metabolism. This is outside my area of expertise and I am sure others can give you proper references. There are of course exceptions to this.

 

This is a separate to the psychological perception of time that animals experience. I have no idea what we can really say about this. I don't know if to a mouse his lifetime feels like our 60 years or not!

[swansont]

Generally it has been observed that larger animals live longer than smaller animals. There has been some suggestion this is to do with heart rate and metabolism. This is outside my area of expertise and I am sure others can give you proper references. There are of course exceptions to this.

 

This is a separate to the psychological perception of time that animals experience. I have no idea what we can really say about this. I don't know if to a mouse his lifetime feels like our 60 years or not!

 

For mammals, you get roughly a billion heartbeats on average if you don't have access to modern health technology.

http://kottke.org/13/02/does-every-species-get-a-billion-heartbeats-per-lifetime

[Dekan]

There seem to be many strands in this complex issue. If I may, I'll put some thoughts, in no particular order:

 

1. On animal sizes - one would expect big animals to move slower than small animals. The physics requires it, because of simple inertia.

For example, consider a humming-bird. This has tiny wings which weigh only a few grammes. The low weight gives the wings low inertia, so the wings can beat so fast, that they seem to merge into a blur of motion. Whereas an albatross has big wings, several feet in length. Such wings have more inertia, so they can't beat as fast as a humming-bird's, for obvious inertial and aerodynamic reasons - nor do they need to.

 

2. On animal lifetimes - if we take a Dawkinsian view that the only purpose of an animal is to replicate its genes, then what matters is how fast the animal reproduces. And small animals must be able to reproduce faster than big animals, simply because the small animals have less tissue to generate. That's to say, a mouse only has to make a few grammes of tissue for each of its pups - whereas a human has to make at least 2 kilos for each baby. So a human is bound to take longer to produce babies. And therefore needs to live longer, to produce enough babies to replace herself.

 

3. On subjective perception of time - we all remember that time went slower in our childhood. When I was in primary school, the summer holiday was about 7-8 weeks by the calendar. This seemed an immense span of time, experienced almost like a geological period. Nowadays, time goes by so fast, that's it's embarrassing to go into the same shop to buy another calendar every year. Don't purchaser and shopkeeper look at each other, and note the signs of mutual ageing?

[Lightmeow]

On swansots post, the link said this:

 

As animals get bigger, from tiny shrew to huge blue whale, pulse rates slow down and life spans stretch out longer, conspiring so that the number of heartbeats during an average stay on Earth tends to be roughly the same, around a billion.

I think that is cool.

 

Then: Delta 1212 also said that a fly must eat something every 90 seconds. I agree with that, therefor the meal time of animals must not be universal

 

 

The way we and flies perceive time will certainly differ but what about the cells that are in both the fly and the human, how is time perceived by them? How about a blade of light??

 

Time is a strange concept indeed.

 

Also an interesting point. This is were we need to bring up more philosophical, that I am not in the mood to talk about, because everyone will have a different take on things...

 

Then Dekan was nice and hashed out more things.

 

The humming bird is much faster, therefor it dies faster because it has more strain on its body. Compare that with a turtle. Turtles are generally slow moving, and live long.

 

The animal reproduction is self explanatory.

 

Then the third thing that was brought up was the "subjective perception of time". This I can agree with also. For us, how can time slow down and speed up. English class, for instance feels like it takes forever to finish, were math is a very fast class. Why is this?

 

Thanks, some of the evidence helps my case, some brings up more questions, and some disprove what I am thinking. I will try to get a formula together for people to tweak around with within the next day.

 

Joshua

[Strange]

Generally it has been observed that larger animals live longer than smaller animals. There has been some suggestion this is to do with heart rate and metabolism. This is outside my area of expertise and I am sure others can give you proper references. There are of course exceptions to this.

 

One obvious exception is dogs: larger breeds tend to have shorter lives than small ones.

[Dekan]

Another exception is women - they have smaller brains than men, yet women live longer than men. Why could that be?

 

Is it because men's big brains get quickly used up by thinking. As opposed to women's small brains, which last longer, because they don't have to bear the strain of thinking. No thinking harasses the female brain - it just operates the vocal chords, which produce the characteristic female yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda..........Anyone who's sat next to a woman in a car or train knows what I mean.

 

Listening to women talk, gives rise to some interesting scientific speculations. When their mouths operate, are they conveying thoughts, or just squawking like social parrots?

[swansont]

 

One obvious exception is dogs: larger breeds tend to have shorter lives than small ones.

 

In part I'd guess that's because breeds are an artificial meddling with the genetics of the wolves from whom they descended.

[Lightmeow]

Another exception is women - they have smaller brains than men, yet women live longer than men. Why could that be?

 

Is it because men's big brains get quickly used up by thinking. As opposed to women's small brains, which last longer, because they don't have to bear the strain of thinking. No thinking harasses the female brain - it just operates the vocal chords, which produce the characteristic female yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda..........Anyone who's sat next to a woman in a car or train knows what I mean.

 

Listening to women talk, gives rise to some interesting scientific speculations. When their mouths operate, are they conveying thoughts, or just squawking like social parrots?

 

 

Or they sleep in, so they do live as long, but they have more time because they sleep more.

[Ringer]

Another exception is women - they have smaller brains than men, yet women live longer than men. Why could that be?

 

Is it because men's big brains get quickly used up by thinking. As opposed to women's small brains, which last longer, because they don't have to bear the strain of thinking. No thinking harasses the female brain - it just operates the vocal chords, which produce the characteristic female yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda..........Anyone who's sat next to a woman in a car or train knows what I mean.

 

Listening to women talk, gives rise to some interesting scientific speculations. When their mouths operate, are they conveying thoughts, or just squawking like social parrots?

 

Women have higher neuronal density than men, so on average the number of neurons stay the same. So the interesting speculation here is, did you actually think about why men have larger brains (hint: men tend to be larger in general) or did you just squawk off a statistic to show a non-existent point?