A number of biological and medical articles have been written on the life span of humans over the ages. Comparisons have also been made with the life spans of other plant and animal species.
However, no one so far has written anything comparing biological scales of our human existence with the physical age and dimensions of the Universe in which everything, including all living things has to be part and parcel of this cosmic existence.
Let us have original thinking by comparing the maximum biological life span of a human to that of the Age of the Universe and other physical entities like light and or a hydrogen atom. All have to be scaled down proportionately for comparison since we shall use time as the common denominator that is shared by both physical and biological systems.
Let us have a look.
If
the Age of the Universe determined at 20 billion years were to be telescoped
into a 24 hour day, then the maximum
life span of a human of 120 years will exist for only (24 x 60 x 60)
seconds / 20 billion x 120 = 5.184 x 10 -4 second or 0.0005184 of a
second
The speed of light in a vacuum is 299 792 458 m / s. or nearly 300,000 km per second.
In other words, our maximum life existence on Earth is sufficiently long for light to travel only up to 155412.41 metres or just 155.412 km.
Another easier way to understand is, our maximum life span has sufficient time for a speeding car travelling at 120 kph to move just (120 km x 1000 m x 100 cm x 10 mm) / (60 min x 60 sec) x 0.0005184 = 17.28 mm
(Light is 8993773.74 times faster than a 120 kph car)
Bohr radius has a value of 5.2917721092(17) × 10−11 m which is the radius of an unexcited hydrogen atom. In other words, the diameter of a hydrogen atom at ground state is 1.058 x 10-10 metres.
If you were to line up hydrogen atoms side-by-side in a straight line, and if you were to walk across them at 5 kph (1.3888 metres per second), you can only cross 1.3 x 1010 or 13,000 million hydrogen atoms each second, or 68,00,000 of them in 5.184 x 10 -4 second before your life vanishes.
Another way of expression, before you can even cover a distance of 0.72 millimeters, your journey in life has already ended.
That, I am afraid is the maximum time you have on Earth if the Age of the Universe at 20 billion years were to be shortened to just a 24 hour day.
Does that mean anything to you?
1. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away (Psalm 90:10).
2. Whereas you know not what shall be tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away (James 4:14).
3. With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day (2 Peter 3:8).
4. All the
world's a stage,
And all
the men and women merely players:
They
have their exits and their entrances
(As You Like It: William Shakespeare)
(As You Like It: William Shakespeare)
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