Age is "Just" a Number?

[steepholm]

A few years ago I was delighted to realise that I, my three children and my father, all had ages that were square numbers. As of today, which is my son's birthday, and for a couple of months to come, I am three times his age, four times my daughter's, and six times my cat's.

Does anyone else find this sort of thing weirdly comforting? Does anyone else, when presented with data points in this form, feel compelled to work out the ages of all involved, and exactly how long ago the square number thing was true? In short, did I watch too much Ask the Family in my nonage? (Note, the clip I have linked dates from towards the end of the programme's lengthy run: it didn't always have such slick production values...)

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Well, of course! I concluded that you're probably a year younger than I am (minus three days, which I already knew about). Though that would suggest your daughter's square was nought?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

You conclude correctly!

Her square was 1 - or at least it was after her birthday, which falls in July.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Ah! I wasn't allowing for mid-year birthdays altering the differential in whole years, though I should have done because you said "for a couple of months"!

It's so much tidier being born in January.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

It's so much tidier being born in January.

It certainly is. I sometimes wish we could all have our birthdays on 1st January, like racehorses, but it would make buying presents a bit of a nightmare.

data point

[grrlpup]

I always factor my age, and take satisfaction in prime-number years. I've met at least one other person who does this; he's a junior-high math teacher.

[sheenaghpugh]

You're making me think of Herbert Brush in Simon Garfield's Our Hidden Lives, based on postwar Mass Observation project diaries. Herbert frequently passed a pleasant few moments working out square roots.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

The only time I've observed such a thing was when I realised that the age difference between myself and my husband is the same as that between myself and my step-daughter!!

I'm so mathematically challenged that such things usually drift pass me...

barely math

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

The particular age/number thing that I've leaned on my whole life is that both my father and brother have ages that end in the same digit as mine. This fact is excitingly stable! It's true every year and helps me remember their ages! (Also it makes me feel worse when I momentarily blank on my mother's final digit.)