Age should be measured non-linearly

[AllWalker]

Think about it - assigning an extra number to your age for every year you are alive doesn't make as much sense as it should. The difference between a 65 year old and a 75 year old is less than between a 20 and 30 year old, which is less than between an 8 and an 18 year old. Ten years of age means different things at different stages in your life.

I propose an alternative: they need a name, but for now I will call them cycles. Cycles will be based on powers of phi, or 1.618... The first cycle ends at, approximately, 1.618 years of age. The second cycle ends at 2.618 years of age.

The third, 4.236 years of age.

The fourth, 6.854 years of age

The fifth, 11.090 years of age

The sixth, 17.944 years of age

The seventh, 29.034 years of age

The eighth, 46.979 years of age

The ninth, 76.013 years of age

The tenth, 122.992 years of age.

This is a nice system. For one thing phi, or the Golden Ratio, is nice. Secondly, these cycles cover the fundamental epochs of a person's life - 18 is the age of majority in many countries, 11 marks the onset of puberty, and everything changes when you hit 29 . Thirdly, no one is likely to make it past 10 cycles, which makes it nicely compatible with our base 10 civilisation.

(Birthdays would still be celebrated - but with this, you get extra holidays! Happy Start of Seventh Cycle!*)

*Since I came up with this years ago - I actually celebrated this. Privately, of course

[Jagman]

Agreed. The age 11 and age 18 are especially well matched. But once people get older they age differently.. still it's less arbitrary than counting off the years you managed to survive..

I move to stop counting birthdays full stop once you've produced at least 2 offspring since you can step out of the genetic limelight at that stage, and get on with living.

[ivan astikov]

Counting backwards at 50 is my plan of action.

[Chew Barker]

I went for agree but it needs work, although I'm not sure how to improve on this.
It is nice that it handles the change in our perception of time as we get older. When I was 6 it seemed like a year would take ages to pass, my 7th birthday felt like a life time away, now a year can pass so quick I barley have time for breakfast. And I believe this is because when I was 6, a year was 1/6 of my life, I'm 24 now and the last 1/24 of my life is passing so quick I have already begun telling people I'm 25.

[ivan astikov]

Damn, that's deep!

[silenus]

Screw that! In the words of Grandpa Simpson: "I'm old! Gimme, gimme, gimme!"

[Walker in Eternity]

The ninth, 76.013 years of age

The tenth, 122.992 years of age.

I like the system, it would be nice if it coincided with retirement age (~65 in the UK) and getting your first letter from the Queen (100).

By the age of 122 you'd have a large pile of them and apparently they would all be the same.