OK, so there are a few technical details that I have to work out first, but before I put all that work into it, there is one practical problem I’d like to figure out. Any event that is merely unlikely in the short term becomes a near certainty in the long term. For instance, it is unlikely that any individual will die in a plane crash. But that is because individuals only spend about 70 years or so engaging in air travel. An immortal being would eventually die in a plane crash, because even paltry odds become significant when you risk them for long enough.
So, my question is what would the average life expectancy be, ignoring all “natural” causes of death, and taking into account only “accidental” cases of death? Things like car crashes, plane crashes, bungee-jumping accidents, electrocutions, murders, etc. Assuming an American and irrespective of sex, how long could one expect to live? What is the number of years lived per fatal incident in this country? Can I expect to live 500 years? 1000? I need to know this kind of thing so that I can determine how to go about ensuring immortality.
In the year 2000, the death rate by accidental means in the U.S. was 34.0 people per 100,000.
Accidents were #5 overall behind heart disease, cancer, strokes, and lung diseases.
Heart disease and cancer are way ahead, but accidents are the leading cause of death until you hit age 45, then cancer is #1. After age 65, heart disease is the leading killer.
Well I meant which you are. I think we should probably rule out STDs (as well as heart disease, cancer, etc.) from causes of “accidental” death. Presumably, whatever brings about my immortality will also prevent diseases. Of course, a jealous lover stabbing me with an ice pick would count towards the causes of accidental death.
BobT (or anyone else), can you translate that stat into years lived per accidental death? I would guess that since 34 is such a small portion of 100,000, we could perhaps translate 100,000 people into 7,800,000 years lived (78 years per person on average)? 7,800,000/34 = 230,000 years lived per accidental death. Does that sound like acceptable math?
Math isn’t my best subject, but something about your reasoning doesn’t seem right. I don’t know the statistics on this, but I’d venture to say that most accident victims are much less than 78 years old.
100,000/34 is 2941. You have 1 chance in 2941 in any given year that you’ll die an accidental death. And approximately 2941 years before the odds catch up with you.
Well, since some kind doper was kind enough to clarify a probability argument I was making last week, I’ll pass the favor on.
Given:
Chance of dying in one year is a constant 1/2941. You can establish a relationship between a number of years and a probability that you’ll live at least that long. Or more precisely: the probability that you’ll die 0 times in a specified interval.
Your chance of not dying in 1 year is 2940/2941. So, your probability of dying zero times in n years is (294017/2941)[sup]n[/sup]. Here’s probabilities I’ve worked out.
Chance of living to be 100: 0.966563
Chance of living to be 1000: 0.711715
about the same as the real fraction who live to be 65, I believe?
Chance of living to be 2000: 0.506538
still a bit more than half of us blowing out 2000 candles, but those birthday parties might not seem so lively anymore.
Chance of living to be 3000: 0.360510
Old, but we’ve all got some people in our family who’ve passed a lot of gas over the last three millenia. But bear in mind that every one of these people is just as likely to live out the next year as you are.
Chance of living to be 4000: 0.256580
Not betting odds, but then again certainly no death sentence.
And so on. Only about 3% of us would still be around after 10,000 years. Small number, but you can expect to see a few of people that old on the subway.
Thanks guys. I didn’t think my method sounded too good. Statistics never were my cup of tea. So, it looks like I can expect another 2000 years to kill. Interesting. At least when you’re immortal, compound interest works in your favor!
But seriously, keep in mind that those figures are averages. While you’re at it with the immortality potion, toss in an anti-clumsiness potion and you’ll be better off. One would also expect that after a few thousand years you’d learn to be careful.
