Time Travel
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Student Handout |
Measuring Time
What is time anyways? What amount of time have you lived? Does time mean the same thing for everybody? If you traveled back in time and changed something, how might your change affect the future? Make the time to do these activities and find out.
How Long Have You Lived?
If you are 11, what percent of your life have you lived? What about if you are 40? Or 70? Or 90? Plot the ages
of your friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles,
parents, grandparents, and great grandparents and
then—using the average expectancy—figure out what
percent of their lives they have lived. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average female born today is expected to live to 80 and the average male born today to 73.
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Average Life Expectancy |
Female |
age in years |
| 0 |
10 |
20 |
30 |
40 |
50 |
60 |
70 |
80 |
90 |
100 |
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100% |
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percent lived |
|
Male |
age in years |
| 0 |
10 |
20 |
30 |
40 |
50 |
60 |
70 |
80 |
90 |
100 |
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100 |
% |
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percent lived |
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How Long is a Minute?
How long is a minute? Well, that might depend on who you ask. Try this activity and see if a minute means the same to everyone:
Get a stopwatch. Choose people of different ages and genders and ask them to tell you when a minute is up after you start the stopwatch. Record each person's name, age, and gender and how long each person thought a minute was. Once you have recorded all your data, look for any patterns that might explain why some people think a minute is more or less than an actual minute.
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Time Paradox
One of the complications with time travel is an idea known as the grandfather paradox. Stated simply, it says that if you traveled to the past and accidentally killed your grandfather before your parents are conceived, there would be no way for you to be born. Therefore, you would not exist to travel back in time in the first place. So how could you have killed your grandfather?
Develop your own scenario where you go back in time
and change something. List the many ways you think your change might affect a future timeline.
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