Relativity, Dog Years, and Aging

I was watching TV tonight.

It was a show about the universe.

Sometimes I think they created the Discovery Channel just for me.

Anyway.

The scientists were describing how close the next sun or star is to our sun and solar system.

It's actually three suns, two that orbit each other and one red dwarf... sounds like some medieval romance or dark comedy. Two star crossed lovers, metaphorically speaking, menaced by the red dwarf who constantly is circling them...

But, I digress, again.

These three suns are approximately 4 light years away from us, thus making for one long trek in the current space machine to get to any planet that might be in the vicinity. One light year is about 6 trillion miles. So, it's pretty far.

But with any show or book on space, time is always a key element of the discussion because it is really impossible to comprehend just how big the universe is, and how the use of time and the measurement of time and distance doesn't really adequately pin down the scope of the universe. I mean, there is really only so much we can understand at any given time. And some shit, well we just want to forget that all together.

Although in the show some of the graphics give a fairly good intuitive sense of the interrelationship of things up there. It's like looking at the brain from a molecular level.

So, I am sitting there with my dog, Annie, and I am wondering, if it is 4 light years away for me from the three suns, how far away is it for Annie, my Bouvier. Never a mind for math, I am immediately thrown into a catatonic state and only her sniffing my hand brings me back around.

With a more measured attempt to calculate the distance to the three stars for Annie, I wonder how many dog years away are they? Or, more precisely, how many dog light years away are they?

My first thought is that Einstein must have been dropping an early form of acid, because after figuring out the relativity thing, E=MC (squared), he probably thought that to dumb the whole thing down a little he came up with the concept of dog years. We had to have something to figure out ourselves.

Why dog years? Other animals don't have their own concept of time, so why do dogs?

When Einstein was figuring how Quarks, Black Holes, and bending space and time by the measure of gravitation fields, he was using what was common and normal to him, human years and our experience of time, speed, and distance. Thus making it somewhat relatable to the rest of us, we all just had to put a whole lot of zeros on anything we were trying to measure. Worked for me and looked about right at the time. I passed the course, although I don't think it was my understanding of the theory of relativity that got me through.

But the concept of Dog years he threw in there to confuse us, I am sure, because once we knew how big the universe was, and our relative (there's that word again) relationship to it, we would be daunted and might begin to create religions and ideologies that explained the entire thing for us so we wouldn't have to think about it. Then we would have built temple as places to worship for these religions into which we would go to bow our heads and close our eyes so we wouldn't see just how big everything is. Oh yeah, we did do all that...never-mind.

Einstein was a clever guy and had one wild sense of humor, thus "dog years." He must have been sipping a good German lager after he finished thinking about space, the universe, and all that other space time continuum stuff, and thought, here's a riddle for you..."dog years."

And if you look into this, as I have been doing, there has been a lot of thought and energy spent trying to figure this out.

Two examples to further confuse the issue.

"One common nomenclature uses "human years" to represent a strict calendar basis (365 days) and a "dog year" to be the equivalent portion of a dog's lifetime, as a calendar year would be for a human being. Under this system, a 6-year-old dog would be described as having an age of 6 human years or 40–50 (depending on the breed) dog years."

"The other common system defines "dog years" to be the actual calendar years (365 days each) of a dog's life, and "human years" to be the equivalent age of a human being. By this terminology, the age of a 6-year-old dog is described as 6 dog years or 40–50 human years, a reversal from the previous definition." (no kidding Einstein)

To further confuse the matter, no specific measure is agreed upon to judge how long a dog year is, although a 1 to 10-15 year ratio is accepted. So that would mean that 1 light year for us would be 10-15 light years for Annie, probably more in the 10-12 range because she is a large bred. That would mean that the three suns are approximately 40 to 60 dog light years away, but that doesn't measure how long it would take a dog to get there, with all the napping and having to go out to pee and stuff.

And if we are traveling with the dogs, like some hyperspace dog sledge, would we get there sooner or later than the dogs, because dog years are also measured by their size. So we'd have to get dogs that are all the same size or we'd arrive with some and the others would still be trekking along so many dog light years behind us.

Very problematic.

And, as one researcher put it about dogs;

"Aging begins at birth, but its manifestations are not noticeable for several years. The first sign of aging is a general decrease in activity level, including a tendency to sleep longer and more soundly, and a waning of enthusiasm for long walks and games of catch."

I still like a good game of catch, and I am definitely up for long walks. The soundness of understanding that aging begins at birth, is well, illuminating, eh. I mean really, hadn't we already figured out that at birth, and probably before for a living organism on this planet anyway, don't know about those other planets, that the degradation process begins. And as the essay continued...

"In general, dogs age in a manner similar to humans. Their bodies begin to develop problems which are less common at younger ages, they are more prone to serious or fatal conditions such as cancer, stroke, etc., they become less mobile and may develop joint problems such as arthritis, and in old age often become less physically active. Additionally, they become less able to handle change, including wide climatic or temperature variation, and may develop dietary or skin problems or go deaf. In some cases incontinence may develop and breathing difficulties may appear."

Sounds remarkably like people, doesn't it. Visit any retirement village, for people, not dogs, and this would be a common list of aliments. And, if they are motoring to the next solar system, how many dog light years before they begin to show their age, and start peeing all over the spacecraft?

Again, problematic.

So why do they get their own life measure independent of all other creatures on this planet?

I don't know.

I am going to continue to look into it. But focusing on dogs and dog years allows us to see our relative life in relationship to our dog's life rather than our own. Works for me.

Chow, like in dog chow....