From Phill Chadwick
Roger Lewin’s article “Ruling passions”
(3 April, p 34) is one of the most
memorable I have read. To discover that simple, mathematically beautiful
relationships exist between such seemingly disparate factors as the lives of
mice and men was a revelation.
It got me thinking (and calculating). Lewin states that the hearts of mammals
of whatever size beat about 1.5 billion times during their lifetime. Assume a
typical human 72 beats per minute (resting); this is about 20.8 million
minutes—roughly 347 000 hours, nearly 14 500 days or just less than 40
years. At 42, I for one had hoped to hang around a little longer.
Modern humans must therefore somehow evade this “law”, regularly living twice
this long. Presumably this is by a combination of good diet, proper sanitation,
and so on.
It makes an interesting counter-argument to claims about our “unhealthy”
modern lifestyles, doesn’t it?
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Erindale, South Australia
