Recently, I am beginning to get the feeling that many things in life are inter-related to one another. After reading the Origin of Wealth by Eric D. Beinhocker, who tried to explain how wealth was generated in an evolutionary way… using an argument similar to Darwin’s the Origin of Species…. I begin to see how science can be easily used to explain certain aspects of our society and everyday life.
I was just talking about a friction formula some time back… and begin to see some relevance in my life. Basically:
Frictional Force = Coefficient of Friction x Weight of Object
Coefficient of Friction = k x Surface area in contact
The Coefficient of Friction depends not just on the materials in contact (as denoted by k) but also the amount of surface area the 2 materials are in contact with each other. In our daily lives, I see the following relationship:
Friction with each other = Compatibilty between 2 persons x Amount of time in contact with the other person
I believe that is one of the key reason why families are full of internal quarrels and squabblings (and no… I did not come out with this formula because of my family squabbles….) They might have been pretty compatible (after all they are people of roughly the same genetic combination), but due to the large amount of time they spend with each other, they will inevitably be irritated by each other’s quirks at some point of time.
Some people say that you’ll enjoy the first 10 years of marriage… the next 10 will be so so…. while the last ten… you will be like dragging it to your grave. Hmmm.. but those were the days when people got married at 30 and die at 60. Today, men live till 76, while women live till 78.
So what are we gonna do with the last 16 or 18 years?
No wonder people are getting married later….. and later…..