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I'm a ruby programmer writing a calculator for a fun blog post.

I want to quantify the perception of time between two individuals.

John has lived 236676.87 hours

Sally has lived 438290.5 hours

1 day to John is 0.010140407890302081% of his life

1 day to Sally is 0.005475820260763124% of her life

How can I go about making a statement such as:

"1 day to John is X days to Sally"

Thank you for your help in advance. ~Joel

jBeas
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  • Well, you can just make the statement. What is your question? Are you asking what $X$ is? – Thomas Andrews Feb 26 '15 at 21:56
  • Yes, I need to know the math to figure out X. – jBeas Feb 26 '15 at 21:57
  • Note that this has nothing to do with actual "perception of time," which I'm sure is quite an interesting subject, but is off-topic here. It's more akin to defining a foot as the length of my foot, so that you and I have different ideas of feet we'd have different units of measure. – Thomas Andrews Feb 28 '15 at 19:34
  • Right, just made for a fun blog post. Obviously many factors go into time perception, but time lived in relation to another is a way to make a perception of time calculator in an afternoon. :) The other guy talked with me in chat for a while and helped me through it so I gave him the points but thank you for your help and correct answer – jBeas Feb 28 '15 at 22:06

2 Answers2

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$$1\text{ day}/J=X/S$$ where $J$ is the length of life of John and $S$ is the length of live of Sally. Solve for $X$. Be careful about units.

Thomas Andrews
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$$ \mbox{let}\ j=\mbox{the number of hours that John has lived.} $$ $$ \mbox{let}\ s=\mbox{the number of hours that Sally has lived.} $$ So now we have $$ \frac{1}{j} = \frac{x}{s} $$ $$ x= \frac{s}{j} = \mbox{the number of days that Sally lived in relation to John.}$$

k170
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  • what does the 1 represent (top left)? Is it 1 day? So since i'm doing everything in hours should it be 24? Can someone please show the work so I can turn it into a program? It's hard when I don't know how to do math like this. – jBeas Feb 26 '15 at 22:30
  • @jBeas, it represents 1 day, which allows x to be in units of days. – k170 Feb 26 '15 at 22:34
  • You are being very kind. Thank you. I just don't understand. Until I can see it line for line in a real example I won't get how it works. I am going to just wait and offer a bounty for someone to show their work. Thank you for your help, I just know too little about this. – jBeas Feb 26 '15 at 22:36
  • @jBeas, grab a calculator and input the hours for Sally divided by the hours for John. The answer is x. – k170 Feb 26 '15 at 22:41
  • 438290.5 / 236676.87 = 1.85185185185185 – jBeas Feb 26 '15 at 22:42
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – jBeas Feb 26 '15 at 22:44
  • @jBeas, perfect. That's exactly how many days Sally experiences, every time John experiences one day. – k170 Feb 26 '15 at 22:45
  • This is where I am at so far, still have to design a graphic for the article, put a shout out for you in there then I'll publish it. http://www.abetterdeveloper.com/perception_calculator – jBeas Feb 27 '15 at 01:14
  • @jBeas, good job and thanks for the shout out! Glad I could help. – k170 Feb 27 '15 at 04:07