Human beings all age at the same rate. Everyone gets one second older in one second. Everyone gets one year older in one year.
People often wonder about changing the aging process. The only way that can happen is if we can change the speed at which we move.
That is indeed possible. One experiment set two clocks. One was on earth. The other was put into an airplane. The airplane flew around the world in the same direction that the earth turns.
When the plane landed the airplane clock was a few seconds behind the one on the ground. That meant the plane flew slower than the earth turned.
This is consistent with Einstein’s theory of relativity. The theory says that time and space are related. Time travels at the speed of light. If you were able to travel faster than the speed of light, you would not age.
An example of this can be found on GPS devices on satellites. Because gravity is not as strong as it is on the earth, time travels at a different speed. Indeed one second is not one second.
The problem is that we cannot approach the speed of light. For example, when you look through a telescope, you are seeing the lights from stars.
The problem is that you are really looking at the past. By the time that light reaches earth it is probably years after the light was first emitted.
That is one reason why alien travel is unlikely. They would have to conquer traveling faster than the speed of light. Or they would have to live to be thousands of years of age to get from one place to another.
There are people who believe that we will conquer time travel in the future. They even believe that UFO sightings are simply history classes in the future coming back to look at the past. This concept is not a lot different than imagining that a UFO contains aliens.
The bottom line is that there is indeed a way to keep from aging. All you have to do is travel faster than the speed of light. At the present time that is not possible. It is not likely to occur in the future either.
But if it did, just think how great history class would be.
COVID-19 Update
The national media is once again looking at hot spots. They are threatening a fourth surge. The numbers do not yet show that.
As I reported last week, we had 441,000 cases one week and then 443,000 the next week. For the last 7 days the total was 453,000. Those numbers are higher. However, they are not consistent with a national surge right now.
In Sussex County there were 358 new cases two weeks ago. Then last week there were 228 new cases. This week there were 304 new cases.
The smaller population is consistent with those kinds of fluctuations. However, there is no clear local surge either.
Fully immunized individuals nationally has gone from 16 percent to 18 percent of the population in the last week. Delaware has gone from 15 percent to 18 percent as well. The number of first doses nationally has moved from 28 percent of the population to 32 percent. Delaware has moved from 29 percent to 34 percent. Thus both nationally and locally about one-third of the population has gotten at least one dose.
There is also good news on the vaccine hesitancy front. In January 22 percent of the population said they would probably not or definitely not get the vaccine. In March the number was down to 17 percent. So people are changing their minds as they see more people do well with the vaccine.
The CDC updated its travel guidelines last week for those who are two weeks or more past their last dose of vaccine. Long distance travel is no longer an issue for those individuals.
Early results suggest that 95 percent of people who are protected do not transmit virus when they become infected with it. The other 5 percent are susceptible to still transmitting COVID-19 when they get it.
Washington State has looked at that 5 percent. They have identified 102 breakthrough cases of COVID-19 in fully vaccinated people.
Of that 102 people most had mild symptoms. Eight were hospitalized. Two of them died. The two deaths occurred in individuals over age 80 with underlying health issues.
Pfizer originally tested its vaccine on 45,000 patients 16 and older. The original studies were done in 45,000 patients. The number was high because they were testing for both safety and effectiveness. Moderna and Johnson and Johnson tested it in adults 18 and older.
Now that they know the vaccine is safe, they are testing younger patients simply for effectiveness. The numbers do not need to be that high.
Pfizer just announced a study of 2,260 adolescents (ages 12 – 15). The vaccine was effective in this age group. This information will be sent to the FDA for review.