Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Looking your age

I keep trying to work out just why it should be that everybody else looks younger as we ourselves grow older. It does not seem to make any sense

It is not just that policemen & (more disturbingly) doctors look as if you should be asking if their mother knows they are out. 70-year olds look 50, centenarians look 70

Relativity provides a likely answer to the question of why time seems to go faster - a year represents a whole 20% of your life when you are 5 years old, but only 2% when you are 50

But if relativity plays a part in other peoples youthfulness, does that mean we are ageing more quickly than they are. Or just that we are more familiar with our own face, more aware of every new wrinkle & grey hair. The memory of what you used to look like is sharper & clearer to you than it is to outside observers