Gompertz Law of human mortality
What do you think are the odds that you will die during the next year? Try to put a number to it — 1 in 100? 1 in 10,000? Whatever it is, it will be twice as large 8 years from now.
This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the “Gompertz Law of human mortality.” Your probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years. For me, a 25-year-old American, the probability of dying during the next year is a fairly minuscule 0.03% — about 1 in 3,000. When I’m 33 it will be about 1 in 1,500, when I’m 42 it will be about 1 in 750, and so on. By the time I reach age 100 (and I do plan on it) the probability of living to 101 will only be about 50%. This is seriously fast growth — my mortality rate is increasing exponentially with age.
Notes:
Your chances of dying double every eight years.
Folksonomies: statistics mortality
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Concepts:
Death (0.949517): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Demography (0.934656): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Probability theory (0.906354): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Actuarial science (0.891860): dbpedia | freebase
Compensation law of mortality (0.716211): dbpedia | freebase
Mortality rate (0.644805): dbpedia | freebase
Thought (0.637077): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Benjamin Gompertz (0.627417): dbpedia | freebase | yago
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