It's a common feeling that time seems to pass more quickly as you get older. In fact it seems as though the rate at which time passes increases proportionally to your age. So, logically(!) the gap between birthdays should increase too.
My idea then is that birthdays should follow an exponential progression after your 1st birthday. So the gap between your nth birthday, where n=1,2,3,4,5... and your (n-1)th birthday could be expressed as e.g. 365*10^(n-1/10). Using this formula, if you were born on 10/12/2001, your first 20 birthdays would be:

1 - 10/12/2002
2 - 14/03/2003
3 - 11/07/2003
4 - 08/12/2003
5 - 13/06/2004
6 - 06/02/2005
7 - 02/12/2005
8 - 13/12/2006
9 - 30/03/2008
10 - 17/11/2009
11 - 08/12/2011
12 - 10/07/2014
13 - 11/10/2017
14 - 17/11/2021
15 - 16/01/2027
16 - 17/07/2033
17 - 21/09/2041
18 - 10/01/2052
19 - 28/12/2064
20 - 26/04/2081
21 - 16/11/2101

So I'm about 16 and a half now (and lewisgirl is about 14 and a half).
-- hippo, Dec 10 2001

its taken a year to spot adhib's link in his anno. http://www.timeandd.../date/birthday.html
wonder if it still works? [po, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

yeugh, no. People have bad enough mid-life crises as it without knowing they're kidding themselves about their age. Hmm, well, I'm ambivalent.
-- lewisgirl, Dec 10 2001


At present, many people slip happily through birthdays like 23 or 27, reserving their distress for the 30th or 25th. Although in the revised scheme, the anguished moments would occur less frequently, would each individual birthday not be much more unpleasant than they are now? Would the total anguish experienced over a lifetime be greater or less with hippo's proposal?
-- pottedstu, Dec 10 2001


I think we should celebrate our mental age birthdays, rather than our physical age birthdays. By which standard, I'm about 12, even younger than in hippo-time. Except, I don't know what happens at a birthday when you get younger. Do you have to give everyone else presents?
-- pottedstu, Dec 10 2001


I'm even older than [PeterSealy] and I agree with him. If I can't have the parties, I refuse to get older at all. Doesn't mean I have to *act* my age.
-- angel, Dec 10 2001


//lewisgirl is about 14 and a half// - how true.
-- lewisgirl, Dec 10 2001


I buy gifts for close family, but not for friends. If they have a party, I buy them a drink (or two), but the real gift is just having them as friends.
-- angel, Dec 10 2001


this feeling of life going quicker as you get older is very real; a year when you are 1 = a lifetime a year when you are 2 = half a life time a year when you are ten = tenth of a lifetime a year when you are forty = a fortieth of a life.

an hour in this place flashes by . aint life grand!
-- po, Dec 10 2001


Birthdays are great. They should come round more often rather than less often. I always feel well happy having survived another year without being bombed, shot, run over, drowned in custard or otherwise terminated. You're just a miserable, *old* person, hippo!I've been looking for an excuse to fishbone you for ages. Looks like this is it.
I love my birthday, though I'm sure that we could do away with everyone else's as they are entirely unnecessary :o)

po's right about the perspective thing though. Are you sure that you didn't just steal that one out of my head whilst I was kipping?
-- DrBob, Dec 10 2001


yep, I do a lot of that
-- po, Dec 10 2001


Hey! I'm about 16 1/2 too!....good, I need my driver's license....
-- Susen, Dec 10 2001


Interesting concept, but it requires too much math to determine one's age.
-- arghblah, Dec 11 2001


Well, you're all miserable sods (OK, not all of you) for fishboning my idea, especially DrBob (who seems strangely insecure about his age...).
-- hippo, Dec 11 2001


I feel no need to respond to that comment, coming as it does from Mr Febuary.
-- DrBob, Dec 11 2001


Don't worry - now that he's done the good-looking HalfBakers' calendar Peter might consider you for the 'Febuary' slot on the next one.
-- hippo, Dec 11 2001


Great!!!! I'm Seventeen again. Now that I know to ignore my ex-wife the first/last time I see her, I'll do just that.
-- thumbwax, Dec 11 2001


what a sweet thought [tw] .. me too (ex-husband, coward and bully)
-- po, Dec 11 2001


Knowing what you know now?
A character in a John Wyndham story, when reminded by his wife that he 'enjoyed being 16' replied that he actually enjoyed 'having been 16, but it wasn't enjoyable at the time'. (I'm paraphrasing.) With the benefit of age (what *do* I sound like?), most things can be looked back on with less angst than they engendered at the time.
-- angel, Dec 12 2001


I didn't enjoy much *until* 16... aside from the time period 1-8 which was pretty cool. So as I am just over 14 here, hippo has put me ten earth years away from the point where I'm going to start enjoying my life. Oh cheers mate.

Perhaps this could be a useful guide to mental halfbakery ages. i.e. all the spotty 12-yr-olds really are about 12, the venerable bakery elders are approaching 18, and you have to be at least halfbakery-age 15 to be taken seriously. As <15 , I expect you all to ignore this.
-- lewisgirl, Dec 12 2001


I treated my 35th birthday like one of the big life milestones (16 = driving, variously 18, 19, or 21 = drinking/voting, 26 = no longer eligible for the draft in the U.S., 40 = mid-life crisis, 65 = retirement). When people asked what was such a big deal about 35, I said, "Now I can be President."

To the people who know me, it was pretty funny.
-- beauxeault, Dec 12 2001


Yay! I'm 15! I can still pay child fares on the buses, and lewisgirl will take me seriously. Fairly close to my mental age also. Now I can watch Roswell High without people sneering at me.
-- pottedstu, Dec 12 2001


ravenswood's is better than hippo, because it's a lot easier to calculate.
-- pottedstu, Dec 12 2001


A: Hey; how old are you? B: I'm 13; you? A: I just turned 14 three days ago. When do you turn 14? B: Uhh... April 19. A: This April 19? B: No. A: Next April 19? No. B: Then when? A: April 19, 2005. B: Hmm... your birthday was in mid-January; wouldn't that make you a Capricorn? A: No, I'm an Aquarius. Aren't you an Aries? B: No, I'm a Taurus.

Despite this, it STILL looks like an interesting idea...
-- mmailliw, Jan 21 2002


Alternatively, if we're ditching the arbitrary annual cycle and adopting alternatives: what about birth seconds?

http://www.timeanddate.com/date/birthday.html

My Mrs is going to be a billion on March 12th! Wahey!
-- adhib, Feb 08 2002


But the people who most appreciate birthdays are youngsters between 3 and 21. Couldn't care less after that, and don't understand before that. Could we not have a system where lots of birthdays are crowded into that period, and then periodically after that. It seems to me that when you get past 30, people are only interested in decades anyway.
-- PeterSilly, Jun 10 2003


I try and celebrate my birthday in a business-like fashion. Quarterly.
-- thecat, Jun 12 2003


damn i'm getting americanised; it took me a while to figure out 14/3/2003. scary
-- stilgar, Jun 06 2004



random, halfbakery