How Old Are You—in Seconds?

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David M. Schwartz
The amazing, engaging, math exponent

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  Do you want to be a lot older? Here’s how: state your age in seconds instead of years! 

     Ready to do some math? But what math will you do?

     First you have to design a problem-solving strategy. There are many approaches but for all of them, consider that with every passing second, you are a second older. So your age is a moving target. Best to pick a specific time of day and find your age in seconds at that time today.

     It doesn’t really matter what time of day you pick.  If you can find out from your birth certificate what time of day you were born, you could select that time today for your target. If you were born at 4:14pm, you will find out how old you are (in seconds) at 4:14pm today. 

     Or just pick any time today and pretend you were born at that time. 

     What next? I hope you will try out your own approach but here is a simple strategy that would work:

      Step 1.  How many days old are you? Figure out how many days elapsed between the day you were born and your most recent birthday. There are 365 days in a year, not counting leap years. In your lifetime, every year divisible by 4 was a leap year and it had a 366th day, which was February 29th.  So add an extra day for each February 29th you’ve lived through.  

      Then figure out how many days have passed since your last birthday. Try to find a way to make this job quicker than counting each day. Look at calendars as you do this to find shortcuts.

      Now you have your age in days. It’s already looking like a big number, isn’t it? Just wait!

      Step 2. How many seconds are in a day? Think about how to figure this out. You know how many seconds are in a minute (60) and how many minutes are in an hour  (60) and how many hours are in a day (24). So how many seconds are in a day? Multiply 60 X 60 X 24. Bet you didn’t realize a day was so long!

      Step 3 So what’s Step 3? You now know how many days you have lived and how many seconds are in a day, so what do you do next? Again, multiply! 

      Next time someone tells you you’re not old enough to do something, you can tell him or her, “Oh yes I am. I’m 299,592,620. That’s what I was at 11:30 this morning. Now I’m even older!”

      Good luck with that!

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A is for “abacus,” B is for “binary,” C is for “cubit”
and W is for “When are we ever gonna use
this stuff, anyway?”  David M. Schwartz's G is for Googol:  A Math Alphabet Book is a wonder-filled romp through the world of mathematics.  For more information, click here.

David is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom,  a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam.  Click here to find out more.

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Schwartz, David. "How Old Are You...in Seconds?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think
     Tank, 3 May 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
     How-Old-Are-You-in-Seconds.