What Do You Say?

[cabinetman]

When my granddaughter was 8 yrs old she asked me:

"If I was 10 yrs old, and my brother was 20 yrs old, he would be twice as old as me."

"When he is 30 years old, I will be 20 yrs old, he's not twice as old anymore. How come?"
.

[steve-norrell]

You slow down when you get older.

The young ones keep trying to catch up.

But you know they never will.

At least, that's what I tell my grandkids.

Regards, Steve

[Greg in Maryland]

Tell her that there is a tear in the space-time continuum and the greatest minds in the world are trying to fix it.

[LinuxRandal]

Tell her basic math trick and see if she is interested in learning any more.

[LCHIEN]

the difference is linear progression vs geometric progression, but i wouldn't explain it to an 8 year old let alone CMan.

The way to explain it to an 8YO is with time lines.
First show a line with 5 and 15 marked.
Then Show a time line just below it with 10 and 20 marked (with te same scale).
Show another time line below it with 15 and 25 marked.
Then show a time line with 20 and 30 marked.

SHow how the difference is constant because they were born 10 years apart and the progression is in increments of 1 but the distance between them stays the same.

now in cotrast show time lines with 5 and 10, then 10 and 20 and then 15 and 30.
Say to keep a constant ratio (e.g. 2:1) requires rules that you double in age every year. That's not how aging work... its an incremental thing.

[cabinetman]

the difference is linear progression vs geometric progression, but i wouldn't explain it...

I agree with you.
.

[gsmittle]

Tell her it's the New Math.

For what it's worth, I'm with her…

g.

[JoeyGee]

"Go ask your mother. Here's a cookie."

[Pappy]

I agree with you.
.

So do I.....Whatever he said.....

[mpc]

Tell her: "what about the day you were born? You were zero... and your brother was 10. He was infinitely older than you. When you were 1, he was 11 and thus 11 times older than you. When you were 2, and he was 12, he was six times as old as you. When you were 5, and he was 15, he was only three times as old as you. At 10 and 20, as you noted, he's only twice your age. As you get older, it will get closer and closer to 'one times your age' but it'll never quite reach one. You are catching up... but will always be ten years younger so you can never catch him."

Or use one from the Calvin & Hobbes comics and make her head hurt along with yours: Calvin's dad mind-bends hom showing him a LP record (remember those?)... something like "Compare a point on the label with a point on the record's outer edge. They both make a complete circle in the same amount of time, right?" Calvin replies "yeah..." Dad continues "But the point on the record's edge has to make a bigger circle in the same time, so it goes faster. See, two points on one disk move at two speeds, even though they both make the same revolutions per minute!"

mpc

[herb fellows]

the difference is linear progression vs geometric progression, but i wouldn't explain it to an 8 year old let alone CMan............

Almost word for word the way I was going to explain it, except completely different...