As I approached my late twenties I began observing a strange phenomena that is quite familiar to older people. Time began to accelerate. Summers that seemed to last forever no longer seemed to stretch on and on. Time between events began to seemingly occur much faster. For example the time between Christmas and Easter seemed shorter when I was in college then when I was in Grammar School. Time was going by faster and faster as I aged. I talked to older friends and they stated that this was true. As you age each year takes less time to experience. In simple terms it means that each year goes by at an accelerated rate as you age.
I thought about this occurrence a lot and I finally arrived at a theory to explain why the acceleration of time during the aging process occurs. I arrived at the theory by thinking of time (in years) and aging in the form of fractions or percentages.
Compare one year of life in percentage and fraction form for persons of the following ages
For a 1yr. old 1 year of life equals 100% or 1/1 of their life
For a 2yr. old 1 year of life equals 50% or 1/2 of their life
For a 4yr. old 1 year of life equals 25% or ¼ of their life
For a 8yr. old 1 year of life equals 12.5 % or 1/8 of their life
For a 16yr. old 1 year of life equals 6.25 % or 1/16 of their life
For a 32yr. old 1 year of life equals 3.125% or 1/32 of their life
For a 64yr. old 1 year of life equals 1.5625 % or 1/64 of their life
For a 80 yr. old 1 year of life equals 1.25 % or 1/80of their life
For a 90yr. old 1 year of life equals 1.1% or 1/90 of their life
As you look down the chart it is noticeable that one year of life becomes a much smaller fraction of a person’s life to experience as they age. One year of life becomes a smaller percentage of life when compared to the whole of lifes age in years experienced to date.
In simple terms each year of life becomes a smaller portion or fraction of life for you to experience compared to how long a year of life took to experience previously.
To a 1yr. old one year is a very long time to experience. Compare that experience to a 16 yr old. One year is 1/16th of their life. Time is speeded up as one year has gone form being 100 percent of a one year olds life to being only 1/16th of or 6.25 percent of a 16yr. olds life .
Compare this extreme. One day in the life of a 3 month old baby 1/90 is equal to one year of time for a 90 yr. old. Also 1/90th of their lifetime.
Time accelerates because we perceive units of time based upon our prior experience. These units get smaller as we age. Thus leading us to the conclusion that time accelerates as we age.
