{"id":255,"date":"2012-11-16T15:17:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-16T15:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/joecarter\/?p=255"},"modified":"2012-11-16T15:17:12","modified_gmt":"2012-11-16T15:17:12","slug":"the-built-in-human-expiration-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/joecarter\/2012\/11\/the-built-in-human-expiration-date\/","title":{"rendered":"The Built-In Human Expiration Date"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In the book of Genesis it notes that the human lifespan is limited to a\u00a0maximum of 120 years<\/a>. And since God is a mathematician, it shouldn\u2019t be surprising that this rate of mortality is an exponential function:<\/p>\n

What do you think are the odds that you will die during the next year?\u00a0 Try to put a number to it \u2014 1 in 100?\u00a0 1 in 10,000?\u00a0 Whatever it is, it will be twice as large 8 years from now.<\/p>\n

This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the \u201cGompertz Law of human mortality.\u201d\u00a0 Your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years.\u00a0 For me, a 25-year-old American, the probability of dying during the next year is a fairly miniscule 0.03% \u2014 about 1 in 3,000.\u00a0 When I\u2019m 33 it will be about 1 in 1,500, when I\u2019m 42 it will be about 1 in 750, and so on.\u00a0 By the time I reach age 100 (and I\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0plan on it) the probability of living to 101 will only be about 50%.\u00a0 This is seriously fast growth \u2014 my mortality rate is increasing exponentially with age.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the\u00a0fascinating article<\/a>\u00a0notes, the Gompertz law holds across a large number of countries, time periods, and even different species: \u201cWhile the actual average lifespan changes quite a bit from country to country and from animal to animal, the same general rule that \u2018your probability of dying doubles every X years\u2019 holds true.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the book of Genesis it notes that the human lifespan is limited to a\u00a0maximum of 120 years. And since God is a mathematician, it shouldn\u2019t be surprising that this rate of mortality is an exponential function: What do you think are the odds that you will die during the next year?\u00a0 Try to put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Built-In Human Expiration Date<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the book of Genesis it notes that the human lifespan is limited to a\u00a0maximum of 120 years. 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