I was 26 when my son was born. Now I am 54. He is half my age now.That means one fine day he will reach 100%.?

Question

You can calculate and see that he started out at 0% 26 years back. Now he is 50% of my age. That means he is growing at twice the speed that I am growing. By logical reasoning then he must be able to reach my age one fine day in the future.When I am 80 he will be 54 that is 67.5% so tell me whats going on here

Answer 1

This is actually a math question. The short answer is, not really, but you can get awfully close. As for the long answer, here it goes...

To calculate the fraction of his weight (H) vs. your weight (Y), it's just simply:

H/Y x 100% (to get the percentage)

As you noted, he started of at 0:

0/26 x 100% = 0%

Now, he is 26 and you're 52:

26/52 x 100% = 50%

And when he's 54, you'll be 80:

54/80 x 100% = 67.5%

The determinate is the ratio between his age and your age. To "reach" 100%, that ratio has to be 1, at least within the accuracy of your measurement. That age can be determined as follows:

(boring mathematical arguments)

... and voila, that is when he is 26,000 years old.

You can check as follows:

26,000/26,026 x 100% = 99.9% which is pretty much (but will never actually be) 100%.

Of course, when you reach your respective birthdays, I imagine the two of you will not be thinking about this weird ratio. Rather, you'll be scratching your heads wondering how you came upon living such a long time.. We can call it even if you share your secret with my descendants. :)

Answer 2

If you carry on this calculation till infinity, the difference of 26 years will not matter and the age of your son will tend to be equal to your age. In the mean time, the % that you are calculating will keep on increasing. But the reality is that you are not going to live for more than 120-140 years, being highly optimistic. If you live up to the age of 130 yrs and your son is also alive till that time, he will reach 80% on your scale. That is the maximum you should expect.

Answer 3

Just because a thing increases forever does NOT mean it increases without limit.

Your son's age as a percentage of yours will always grow closer to 100%, but always does so with increasing slowness. It would take an infinite amount of time for it to actually reach 100%.

A similar example: Suppose you are running a race and you're 80 meters behind the leader. One minute later, you're 40 meters behind. One minute after that, you're 20 meters behind, and so forth. The distance always grows smaller, but would take an infinite time to reach zero.

Answer 4

Yes, this is what is called a diminishing series tending to infinity.
His age , as a percentage of yours, will get closer and closer to 100% (But never reach exactly 100%)
---till you get fed up of the calculation [Even if we assume that you don't die by then!]

Answer 5

except ur age isn't a ratio....
if u were to find the secret to immortality...and 1000 years passes by, you would be 1026 years old while ur son is 1000 years old....that is 97%....if 10000000000 years go by, then yes it would seem as if it were 100% but the fact remains the same that u are STILL 26 years OLDER than ur son

Answer 6

If both of you live forever. (never die), the pecentage of your son's age will increase accordingly, It will be near to 100% i.e. 99.9999% after years but never get 100% as the difference of 26 yrs will be always there. No doubt this difference will be negligible after millions of years

Answer 7

However, it can never get to 100% as there will always be 26 years between you. Even when you (or your bones) are 1000, he will be 974 which is 97.4%

Answer 8

Oh for goodness sake! You will always be 26 years older than your son.
.

Answer 9

Doesn't this all shake-out to mean he will then be 100% of what your age was when you were 54?
And wouldn't that apply regardless of his speed or rate of ageing?

Answer 10

Its simple. Do not forget You will not go beyond 80-85.
Its max.