How Long Is a Lifetime…In Terms of Pi?
How Long Is a Lifetime…In Terms of Pi?
How Long Is a Lifetime…In Terms of Pi?
Jason Marshall, PhD
After posting about the relationship between π and the number of seconds in a year, math fan Michael sent me a note giving another fun way to think about how these two things are related. Namely, that
π seconds ≈ 1 nano-century.
In other words, 3.14 seconds is about one-billionth of a century. If you want to get particular about things, the actual number of seconds in a nano-century is a little more than 3.156…but that’s close enough to π for our purposes.
Of course, this is a totally ridiculous number since it’s somewhat insane to go around measuring relatively tiny things like seconds in terms of great big things like centuries. It’s like saying that 6 kilometers is about the same length as the nano-Sun-to-Pluto-distance (i.e., 6 km = 10-9 • the distance between Pluto and the Sun). See…kind of crazy, right?
Yes, kind of…but not entirely. Because if we multiply both sides of the relationship π seconds ≈ 1 nano-century by 1 billion (or multiply both sides of the relationship we found last time by 100), we find something that’s definitely not crazy. In particular, this new relationship tells us that if you’re lucky enough to live for a century, your lifetime will have contained about π-billion seconds.
Which is quite a few seconds. Well, sort of…I mean, it’s comforting to see that the number of seconds in a human life is in the billions (and not millions), but it’s also not in the trillions or quadrillions. Which serves as a great reminder to make as many of those however many billions of seconds count!
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Jason Marshall is the author of The Math Dude’s Quick and Dirty Guide to Algebra. He provides clear explanations of math terms and principles, and his simple tricks for solving basic algebra problems will have even the most math-phobic person looking forward to working out whatever math problem comes their way.