Einstein's Fountain of Youth

I've often wondered why people from equatorial regions often times appear more youthful when compared to populations considerably north or south of them. I guess it could be any number of things...an easy going lifestyle, healthier food, nicer climate, genetics...but maybe it's not. Maybe it's a matter of E=mc2.

Einstein's theory of relativity presents the notion that the faster one travels, the slower the time for them passes. Experience of time is relative, and the closer you approach the speed of light, your experience of time becomes inceasingly sluggish. At the speed of light, time stops. Go any faster, and you'll actually go backwards in time, so the theory goes. Sounds like science-fiction but apparently the theory still holds water in the scientific community. So, in practical terms what does this mean to the rest of us who lack a means of travelling at the speed of light? Well, pilots and astronauts, having spent some time traveling at speeds of 3000 to 40,000 km/h, have actually slowed their own experience of time by small fractions of a second. The more hours they log at such speeds, the younger they'll actually be than they would have been had they stayed on earth and not flown. The difference is miniscule though, because even the most experienced pilots and astronauts are actually flying only a small portion of the time, in terms of their life as a whole.

You don't need to be a hot shot fighter pilot or an astronaut to take advantage of this phenomenon though. Even standing still, you are traveling at enourmous speeds every second of your life. As the earth races around its orbit it's taking us with it at about 105,000 km/h. Similarly, our solar system is racing through the galaxy, and our galaxy through the universe. We are all getting the benefits of this speed collectively, and that's why we don't notice it. The challenge then becomes getting additional time-slowing benefits that are not available to others on this planet equally. As mentioned before, this can be achieved with airplanes, space vehicles and fast cars to a lesser extent (I wonder if that's why mid-life crisis sufferers often purchase sporty racers to make them feel young again?). Lesser still are the benefits of running and other similar excercises, due to miniscule speeds involved, but in principle they make a difference (plus the added benefits of a fitter body).

This brings me back to the equator issue. In addition to orbiting the sun, the earth also rotates on its axis. At the equator, the speed of this spin is about 1600 km/h, and decreases steadily as we move out towards the poles, where it's virtually 0 km/h. Think about it. The earth's circumference is about 40,000km at the equator, and it needs to rotate around itself in 24 hours, thus a speed of about 1600km/h. Anywhere north or south of the equator, the circumference and speed are thus less. Now, bare in mind the earth is doing this 24/7, and it's been doing it for a long time, certainly for our entire existance. If you consider the difference in speed traveled in one lifetime at the equator, would it not make a difference in terms of keeping one younger than their non-equatorial counterparts? I think it might play a role.