An Idea
The length of a given summer in ratio to the age of a person decreases logarithmically as he ages. A correlation to this is that the year-over-year delta ratio also decreases in a similar logarithmic scale.
This leads to the conclusion that the summers of one’s youth are more memorable due to the proportional size of each summer in relation to the age of the person.
One can view analytical data for this concept further in this page here:
An Idea, in English
Summertime.
One of the four seasons we have learned to love, or endure – depending on where we live and the conditions of the season.
Think back to the longest summer you’ve experienced. Chances are you’ll recall a summer of your childhood.
Now, the most memorable summer may be because of a significant event like a wedding, childbirth, or moving experience (pun intended on the last one). But think of the longest summer, and I’ll take a chance and say this would be childhood summertime.
Think of it – school just let out, the ground is starting to dry out from the muddy spring season, and the hint of grasshoppers singing in the fields is just lurking round the corner, on its way out to meet you. There are a million things to do and next school session is too far away to even think about. Sunup to sundown lasts like 50 hours in the day and at night if the parents let a sleep-over take place then it’s noisy and fun for hours.
Looking at this a different way, it’s a million miles away from Christmas. Or, ask a child what he or she wants to dress up for on Halloween the day after school lets out and you’ll get a strange look as a response. October is far too far away to ask silly questions like that.
But summer, being one of the four seasons, is only 3 months long. Why then does it seem so long when you’re a kid?
The answer is – it’s all in the numbers.
There’s some bad news and good news in the answer. God, being smart like He is, gave us beings who experience time the way we do a way to deal with ageing in a manner only a divine being can do. He can’t remove the inevitable but He does make the inevitable work for us in quite a clever way. I’ll explain.
Let’s start with the bad news
Imagine a newborn child – actually about 3 months old. He was born at the start of summer. For this kid, a 3-month-long summer is all he knows. It’s taken up 100% of his life.
Now think of the same child, 6 months old. Summer has gone but it’s still been half his life.
The child celebrating his 1st birthday will have gone through all 4 seasons, and summer is still a major portion of his life – ¼ of it still.
The child, at 2 years, has seen two summers, and each summer he’s seen now makes up 12.5% – or 1/8 – of his entire life.
At 7 years, each summer makes up only 3.6% – or 1/28 – of his seven years of experience and learning and life in the world.
I think you see the idea. As we grow older, summers appear to become shorter, because we age and each individual summer takes up less and less of our total lifetime.
This is why the childhood summers seem to last far far longer than any other time in the world. Most of us haven’t a clue what a summer is until we’ve been in school a couple of years, so it’s safe to say that a 7-year-old’s summer is the longest one each of us will remember.
We’ll never have a summer as long as the newborn child born at the beginning of summer. Even if we live to be 200 years, we’ll never see longer summers. Especially if we live to be 200 years.
Let’s look at the good news
Ok that was the bad news. But, here comes the good bit, the part where God says, “Yes, we can’t avoid this. But here’s something to make up for this.”
Summers become shorter as we get older. But the rate at which they get shorter becomes smaller.
This means that each year, the summer becomes shorter for each of us, but only a little shorter than the previous year.
Taking the child’s example above, you can see that the length of summer at each ‘snapshot’ of his life is drastically different – 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%, 3.6% of his life. But each change is less dramatic from the one before it.
By the time the child is 11 years old, summer has ‘shrunk’ for him but only by 9% from the previous year.
By the time he’s 16, a summer is only 6% less than the year before it.
By 23, it’s down to 4%
When the child becomes 40, summers will be as ‘short’ as they will be until he reaches age 67. From there, the summer shrinks no more even if he lives to be 105 years old.
So what does this all mean?
I don’t know.
I just think the numbers make up a very interesting pattern, a drawing of a grand scale where the architect is wise and kind and caring for His creations.
This pattern shows me that the first experiences a baby encounters – in the womb, even – are infinitesimally enduring, if not in brain-memory then in heart-memory.
The pattern shows me the impatient storms of youth are very real to the youth but once these are weathered, the storms lessen as the youth grows older, and hopefully wiser.
It shows why our parents’ patience grows as they watch us grow; not only because they are learning about us children but they are also learning that time isn’t as scary as it used to be.
Now this doesn’t explain all, as we are each individual beings with our own driving forces, dreams, temperaments, experiences and environments. But it goes a long way in explaining some of the things I see around me.
Looking at the grid of numbers below, I see patterns between certain behaviours and ages also.
The Data
Below is a link to a copy of the workbook used to come up with this analysis.
summerflies <– Click to view dataset
For those interested in just the results, the graph and numbers are below for your perusal.
The Graph
Each line going up and down is a year in the life of a person, from age 1 to age 105
Each line going across shows how much shorter a summer is from the previous year for the person, from 50% to nearly 0%.
<– Click to view full-sizedNumbers for the graph
Below is a copy of the grid of numbers used for the graph.
| Age | days | summer (3 months) as percentage of age |
Difference from previous year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 365 | 25.0% | 100% |
| 2 | 730 | 12.5% | 50% |
| 3 | 1,095 | 8.3% | 33% |
| 4 | 1,460 | 6.3% | 25% |
| 5 | 1,825 | 5.0% | 20% |
| 6 | 2,190 | 4.2% | 17% |
| 7 | 2,555 | 3.6% | 14% |
| 8 | 2,920 | 3.1% | 13% |
| 9 | 3,285 | 2.8% | 11% |
| 10 | 3,650 | 2.5% | 10% |
| 11 | 4,015 | 2.3% | 9% |
| 12 | 4,380 | 2.1% | 8% |
| 13 | 4,745 | 1.9% | 8% |
| 14 | 5,110 | 1.8% | 7% |
| 15 | 5,475 | 1.7% | 7% |
| 16 | 5,840 | 1.6% | 6% |
| 17 | 6,205 | 1.5% | 6% |
| 18 | 6,570 | 1.4% | 6% |
| 19 | 6,935 | 1.3% | 5% |
| 20 | 7,300 | 1.3% | 5% |
| 21 | 7,665 | 1.2% | 5% |
| 22 | 8,030 | 1.1% | 5% |
| 23 | 8,395 | 1.1% | 4% |
| 24 | 8,760 | 1.0% | 4% |
| 25 | 9,125 | 1.0% | 4% |
| 26 | 9,490 | 1.0% | 4% |
| 27 | 9,855 | 0.9% | 4% |
| 28 | 10,220 | 0.9% | 4% |
| 29 | 10,585 | 0.9% | 3% |
| 30 | 10,950 | 0.8% | 3% |
| 31 | 11,315 | 0.8% | 3% |
| 32 | 11,680 | 0.8% | 3% |
| 33 | 12,045 | 0.8% | 3% |
| 34 | 12,410 | 0.7% | 3% |
| 35 | 12,775 | 0.7% | 3% |
| 36 | 13,140 | 0.7% | 3% |
| 37 | 13,505 | 0.7% | 3% |
| 38 | 13,870 | 0.7% | 3% |
| 39 | 14,235 | 0.6% | 3% |
| 40 | 14,600 | 0.6% | 2% |
| 41 | 14,965 | 0.6% | 2% |
| 42 | 15,330 | 0.6% | 2% |
| 43 | 15,695 | 0.6% | 2% |
| 44 | 16,060 | 0.6% | 2% |
| 45 | 16,425 | 0.6% | 2% |
| 46 | 16,790 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 47 | 17,155 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 48 | 17,520 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 49 | 17,885 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 50 | 18,250 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 51 | 18,615 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 52 | 18,980 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 53 | 19,345 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 54 | 19,710 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 55 | 20,075 | 0.5% | 2% |
| 56 | 20,440 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 57 | 20,805 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 58 | 21,170 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 59 | 21,535 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 60 | 21,900 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 61 | 22,265 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 62 | 22,630 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 63 | 22,995 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 64 | 23,360 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 65 | 23,725 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 66 | 24,090 | 0.4% | 2% |
| 67 | 24,455 | 0.4% | 1% |
| 68 | 24,820 | 0.4% | 1% |
| 69 | 25,185 | 0.4% | 1% |
| 70 | 25,550 | 0.4% | 1% |
| 71 | 25,915 | 0.4% | 1% |
| 72 | 26,280 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 73 | 26,645 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 74 | 27,010 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 75 | 27,375 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 76 | 27,740 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 77 | 28,105 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 78 | 28,470 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 79 | 28,835 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 80 | 29,200 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 81 | 29,565 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 82 | 29,930 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 83 | 30,295 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 84 | 30,660 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 85 | 31,025 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 86 | 31,390 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 87 | 31,755 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 88 | 32,120 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 89 | 32,485 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 90 | 32,850 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 91 | 33,215 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 92 | 33,580 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 93 | 33,945 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 94 | 34,310 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 95 | 34,675 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 96 | 35,040 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 97 | 35,405 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 98 | 35,770 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 99 | 36,135 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 100 | 36,500 | 0.3% | 1% |
| 101 | 36,865 | 0.2% | 1% |
| 102 | 37,230 | 0.2% | 1% |
| 103 | 37,595 | 0.2% | 1% |
| 104 | 37,960 | 0.2% | 1% |
| 105 | 38,325 | 0.2% | 1% |