The Age Question

[Black Fox]

Like...wow!!

[Rocknjosie]

All the kids in Waisthigh are in first grade.

[Wishmaster]

The Eternal Hand of Science Slaps Down (by request)

But atomic matter does age, because every atom has a chance to decay And in any event it's possible that neutrons and protons have a (very long) decay lifespan, which means they have an age and an expiration date...

This is a very accurate statement. Neutrons decay into protons and electrons. Protons decay into a mishmash of atomic particles that eventually decay into photons.

Unless you're talking about leptonic matter like electrons. But then there's all that evidence that there is really only one electron in the universe, and all the copies of electrons we see are caused by that one jumping forward and backward in time,

Leptonic matter doesn't appear to decay - true.

Only one electron in the universe - there's no "all that evidence" about it. As a concept, it's more of a joke than anything else. Electrons have mass, and that mass has been measured in two different places at the same time. Additionally, electrons need to be present to cancel the positive charge of protons in an atom, and are a component of all the neutrons in the universe. For a single electron to skip around to every single atom and every single neutron in the universe, and stay around long enough so the net charge of each atom or each neutron register's the negative charge of the electron, is just a joke.

But those atoms are still made up of the same stuff that makes up the rest of the universe . . . laws of thermodynamics and the inability to truly create or destroy and all. Regardless of their change in form, be it molding into something new or decaying away from being old, the basic stuff that makes up everything is still there underneath.

Matter and energy are the same thing. Matter is more ordered than energy, and matter will decay into energy given time. Energy will continue to degrade to lower and lower levels until such time as the universe is nothing but heat. Very, very low levels of heat. It's the heat death of the universe.

Except that the halflife of a proton is rumored to be longer than the age of the universe. So while it's a measure of age, it's just not a very good one.

Not rumored. The universe isn't all that old... 1.37x10^10 years or so.

Universe: 13,700,000,000 years old.

Half life of a proton is expected to be about 10^32 years.

Proton: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 year half-life

About 7,300,000,000,000,000,000,000 times longer than the age of the universe.

Right. It's magic. Got it.

[Warren]

So apparently everyone is old enough to drink! And collect social security!

[Jim North]

Even with those two comforts, it's still a bit of a drag being 13,700,000,000 years old . . . especially when you're told to act your age.

[BrownEyedCat]

All of my characters are around the age I was when I started my comic . . . sixteen or so. Considering how much older I am now, that makes me a little embarassed.

But then, that's exactly why I've avoided mentioning that in my comic. In fantasy, they're all 'callow youths'. Actual years do not apply.

[Ryuko]

I made the people in my comic college graduates. That way I could go without drawing a school setting. I didn't realize that it would mess up some of the timelines of the stories I'm telling that are set in High School, which was a long time ago for these people...

[Naohiro]

Majority of the characters in my comic are young adults....even if their ages are in the thousands. I guess in human years they would average from 17-26 or so. 8)