How You Can Slow Aging

Written By Fireheart l
10-Kim,Gyeongmin-80014985.jpg

Sunny Kim (ISB 10)

Fascinated with the intricacies of Physics, Sunny Kim explores galactic travel with a twist - perhaps a solution to the inevitability of aging.

Her analytical perspective on if humans can truly reverse the aging process is enlightening.

We can all imagine ourselves in the future. Slathering anti-aging cream on our wrinkled faces or taking a seemingly excessive amount of vitamin pills and ginseng extract, all in the hopes to stop ourselves from aging. But what if someone told you that you actually can slow aging, not in the mundane way through exercising every day or eating lots of vegetables, but through the laws of physics? The method is simple: very quick travel.

First, let’s do a thought experiment. There are a pair of twins — let’s call them Cole and Dylan. Dylan stays on Earth, while our beloved Cole travels at a constant speed to a distant planet ten light-years away and comes back. Cole is traveling very, very fast — a significant fraction of the speed of light. Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity states that an object traveling faster will experience time dilation (time slowing down) or length contraction (distance becoming shorter). If someone experiences time dilation, their wristwatch clocks, as well as their biological clocks will slow down, meaning that after Cole comes back to Earth, he will be younger than Dylan... or will he? In Dylan’s perspective, Cole was traveling at a faster speed, so Cole will have experienced time slowing down. When Cole returns to Earth, he will be much younger than Dylan. However, from Cole’s perspective, he himself is stationary — the Earth (along with his dear twin brother) is moving. So that would mean that he would be aging normally and Dylan would be younger than him. However, they both cannot be younger than the other, so which case is right?

“Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity states that an object traveling faster will experience time dilation (time slowing down) or length contraction (distance becoming shorter).”


This case is called the Twin Paradox, but it is not actually a paradox — there is an answer. There are two postulates that the Theory of Special Relativity is based on: 1. All laws of physics apply for all inertial reference frames* and 2. the speed of light is constant. The answer lies in the first postulate. Because velocity incorporates both the speed and direction of travel, Cole does not maintain constant velocity. Although he travels with the same speed, his direction changes when he is coming back from the distant planet. That means that Cole is not an inertial observer — he is in different reference frames — so the Theory of Special Relativity cannot be applied to his motion. Meanwhile, Dylan is an inertial observer: his velocity was constant, so Dylan’s point of view is correct. For this reason, Dylan should be older than Cole when they reunite, not the other way around.

In order to be younger than your Earth counterpart, you have to be Cole in the thought experiment. But exactly how fast do you need to travel in order to control how much you age? Luckily, there is a factor that we can multiply to calculate exactly how much slower you will age depending on what speed you travel. It is called the Lorentz factor and it looks like this:

v is the speed of travel (m/s) and c is the speed of light (approximately 3x10^8m/s)

v is the speed of travel (m/s) and c is the speed of light (approximately 3x10^8m/s)

To figure out how many years would have passed for you, you would divide the time that your Earth counterpart measures by the Lorentz factor. For example, if you traveled at a speed of 2.598*10^8 m/s (or 86.6% the speed of light), you would age half as much as your Earth counterpart; the Lorentz factor would be approximately 2.

(From ScienceABC)

(From ScienceABC)

Modern technology does not allow us to travel that far or that fast, yet. Even Elon Musk’s Hyperloop could travel only at about 463km/h before exploding. However, if we could travel fast enough, why would we want slow aging? Perhaps it is one of these reasons.

Old age can bring health issues along with it. Older individuals are more susceptible to cardiovascular disease (hypertension, stroke), bone fracture, urinary incontinence, dementia, and other health issues. Body metabolism is weaker than before, and the heart and bones will become frail. Although it is different for each individual, being older generally means that the body needs more care. However, some individuals, with healthy lifestyles, can be in conditions as good as people in their twenties.

(From Britannica)

(From Britannica)

Another possible explanation for our tendency to latch onto our younger selves lies in the symbolism of youth. Youth is freedom and opportunity. As we age, the risks of making mistakes are bigger: we have more people to care for, and other people expect more from us. Being young means that we are allowed to make mistakes — we learn from them and make better decisions in the future. The future also holds an infinite possibility for us because of the different approaches we can take to developing ourselves. We are not afraid of what will happen but are ambitious and full of wonder. As we age, the hearth burning inside of us will no longer burn as incandescently as it did during our youth, no matter how much we convince ourselves otherwise.

“As we age, the risks of making mistakes are bigger: we have more people to care for, and other people expect more from us.”

It does not matter whether we wish to prolong youth by hopping on a plane, traveling hundreds of millions of meters per second if we cannot make the fullest out of the opportunities that we are given. Slowing aging may be a way to keep our “youth,” but if we do not use the time to try everything and make mistakes, are we really experiencing youth to the fullest extent?

I would like to end with a quote.

“Carpe Diem, seize the day.”
— A Dead Poet's Society's O Captain My Captain

Fireheart l
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