How Quickly do Dragons Age? - Answered with Science!

[Comet Tail 808]

This question is very much relevant to Sweetie BellexSpike and RarityxSpike shippers (or those opposed to both).

 

If dragons live thousands of years, then wouldn't Sweetie Belle or Rarity grow old and Spike remain young? (ignoring the pony dying part)

 

More importantly, if Spike is Sweetie Belle's age, then will those grow up together, or will Spike stay young, due to a dragon's longer lifespan, as Sweetie Belle ages?

 

Well, that all depends on how quickly dragons age. Longer lifespan doesn't guarantee slower aging...

So how Quickly DO Dragons age?

 

Well, we can find out! With Science!

 

*Note, we're investigating normal, natural growth, ignoring the supernatural growth caused by Spike's greed in "Secret of my Excess". We know this normal growth exists because Spike is older than he was when he hatched (see: S1E23, when he hatches in Twilight's story)

 

First off, we know dragons are, well, european (with the exception of Steven Magnet) styled dragons, social animals, and they can nap for a hundred years. That's a "nap". So, it's a pretty obvious implication that they live hundreds of years, if not thousands.

 

 

 

So how quickly will Spike age?

 

Well, Spike hatched when Twilight was about 6-8 years old, he acts like he's 8-16 years old, which sets the mane 6 at around 14-24 years old.

We'll base his aging rate off of how old he acts, and call it maturity.

 

 

Let's find the maximum growth rate for these numbers, implying he's the maturest possible (16 years), and has had the least years to grow.

 

Least years: Born when the mane 6 were 8, and they are now 14.

This makes him 6 years old, and he acts like a 16-year old, which means he ages 2.67x as fast as any pony.

 

Now let's establish a minimum growth rate for these numbers, which means he's the least mature possible (equivalent 8 years old, acts like an 8-year old), and has had the most years to do it.

 

Most years: Born when the mane 6 were 6 years old, and they're now 24.

That makes him 18 years old, and he acts like an 8-year old, which means he ages at 8/18 the rate of a normal pony, or he matures 44.44% as quickly as a normal pony, or 2.25x slower.

 

 

So that's anywhere from 2.67x faster, to 2.25x slower.

 

Now, let's do the most realistic numbers:

 

Given that he "matured" in "Secret of my Excess" and seemed to hit puberty, we know he's less than 12 years mature, and he acts at least 8 years mature. So let's land him at an average of 10 years.

Rainbow Dash was at flight camp, and Twilight was being admitted to something like a university. So for that, let's say they were 8 years old.

 

Now, we're left with two unknown variables (maturing rate of Spike and age of Mane 6). We can plug in one, and get the other, or vice versa.

 

If we assume Spike ages as quickly as a normal pony, this means the mane 6 are 18 years old.

We could assume the Mane 6 are any particular age, and get an aging rate for Spike, but the mane 6 act in such a way... It's really impossible to tell. Anywhere at all from 16-22, I say. So 18 works rather well.

Word of Lauren on the topic (an old post on DA I'd rather not dig up right now) says they're more around 14 years old, but age more quickly than humans and don't live as long, which means they'd be slightly older in "human years", which would correspond to about 16-18 years old.

 

(*Note, this entire post has been done assuming ponies mature at the same rate as humans, so all the numbers we've been using are "human-years". For all we know, Equestria is on the surface of a Neutron Star and the ponies are microscopic and live lives in a billionth of a second, so using their Actual age and maturing rates is impossible, without getting some really solid canon data about how they age. (Okay, yeah, obviously they're not on a neutron star, but you get my point: we have no idea how quickly they age, in actual 31.5e6-second years) So, for now, we're just measuring how quickly Spike ages in relation to the ponies, even though we don't really know how quickly ponies age.)

 

That would mean Spike either grows just as fast as any pony, or slightly faster.

 

It all actually makes sense, in context of "Dragon Quest". In fact, "Dragon Quest" can be used to get a general order of magnitude estimate on how long dragons live!

How?

 

Well, let's assume that the dragons Spike ran into are the only adolescent (12-18) dragons in the migration. There seemed to be about six of them, and thousands of much larger, older dragons. If we take "thousands" to mean 5,000.

 

Now, if there are 5,000 dragons, then these 6 represent 0.12% of statistical probability of any dragon. In other words, pick any dragon at random, and there's a 0.12% it'll be one of those 6.

 

Now, since those 6 are ALL the dragons in-between the ages of 12-18, that means that same percent is in-between the ages of 12-18. Assuming there hasn't been anything like a "baby boom", and their growth rate is more or less constant, and death strikes all ages equally, then there's 833 (which is 1/0.0012) dragons that are different ages.

 

12-18 is a nice number, since under that same assumption, each dragon is one year older than the other (since there's 6). With that, we can say each dragon represents 1 year, thus 833 dragons means the oldest is 833 years old.

 

Not too bad. Might I say, though, that that's assuming those were the only 6 teenagers. If there's more, that number will go down proportionally (once again, with the assumption that their aging is evenly spaced. IRL, their aging would be more scarce at higher numbers, which would drive the average and thus maximum age down for a fixed number of dragons. That's cause death tends to strike more in later years than younger ones, after a certain tragic threshold of youth...), and if there's more adult dragons than 5,000, then that age goes up proportionally. (i.e, if there's 2x as many, then dragons live 2x as long, if there's 2x as many teenagers, then dragons live 1/2 as long.)

 

So yeah, it's really not very accurate, and works on the shabby assumption that those 6 are the ONLY adolescents, and there are 5,000 dragons. So at best, it gives a very rough guess at a dragon's lifespan.

 

But what this does show, though, is that it's very probable that dragons do live thousands of years (as I just established, at least 800 or so) even if they age as quickly as ponies do.

 

 

In fact, it would make excellent sense and explain why teenage dragons were so scarce at the dragon migration.

 

So, applications of shipping aside, we can see some brilliance among our writers, yes, the same writers that gave us calculus that described Lorentzian Transformations for objects moving near the speed of light at constant acceleration [apologies, broken link. In "It's About Time", Twi had some real calculus on her chalk board to do with relativity], have once again, either by luck, or brilliance, made the dragon population age proportions consistent with the Spike's aging rate and the lifespan of a dragon that takes naps that last a hundred years.

 

Kudos, Studio B.

(Although I doubt you did this math, I wouldn't be surprised if you thought, "hey, dragons age like ponies, but live thousands of years... So wouldn't most of them be really old?" And that's good enough!)

 

image credits: second smiley: austiniousi.deviantart.com , joemasterpencil.deviantart.com , and the tiny smiley: stabzor.deviantart.com

Edited November 24, 2012 by Mattlight

[AustralianFries 213]

I'd say dragons live to be about as old as Alicorns. I mean, Celestia has been around even before two 1000 year long events, and was there before the Crystal Empire disappeared (and that was for like 5000 years, if I recall correctly. Either way, well over 1000 years). And if dragons can "nap" for hundreds of years, you have to wonder what a full up "sleep" is. Not just like an overnight sleep, like a full on "sleep". You'd have to guess that it would be inbetween 1000 and 2000 years. So that would mean their lifespan is pretty substantial.

 

And I think the Mane 6 are in the low twenties. Definitely not 14. I'd say at lowest 18-19.

[ping111 124]

I consider cartoon character's age position to be called "SpongeBob". I say this because SpongeBob is old enough to own a home independently (18), and be applicable for boating/driving lessons (16). However, due to the target demographic of the show, he has to act as if he's in the 7-10 range, maybe a little older on occasion. Due to this huge anomaly, only one inference can be made:

 

IT'S A CELESTIA-DAMNED CARTOON.

Now don't get me wrong, I love science as much as the next guy, even more, but there is no maturity-age ratio in young children's cartoons. They age much, much faster than they mature, as to keep the character of the, well, characters, constant as new generations come to watch the show.

[Zygen 6,066]

Well its certainly a well thought out theory, however they do specifically state that dragons grow with greed, they still age but don't grow necessarily as I see it without greed. Like spike could be 1000 years old, yet still be that size as long as he doesn't give into greed.

 

The one problem with that theory that is stated in the show is how spike has aged from his birth to now, thats something that I don't really know how exactly to explain.

However the opposite question is posed with your theory seeing as the show states dragons grow from greed.

 

The fact that dragons live extreamly long lifespans would be true, especially of they follow the same mythology as other dragons. I'd say they can easily live a couple thousand years if they can nap for a couple hundred.

[Colt 555]

I think there is one little detail you are dropping here. The way Spike acts and his conduct can show what your investigation supports but thats just because we can say that he is acting like a "teen" dragon.

 

So we can say dragons are close to what in our world could be a reptile right? Some of the reptiles of our world among the most "quick to mature" species there are when compared to their life spam.

 

There are some crocodile species that achieve maturity “reproduction age” on their 6 to 8 birthdays. If we take that one of the oldest crocodiles in captivity is around 130 years old we can say that on the better case scenario a reptile like this reach maturity 4 times quicker than us humans.

 

Also we can considerate that these kinds of reptiles also suffer from exponential growth from their original hatching size to their final mature body size, just like dragons. From 8 inchs or less they can grow to 20FT that’s like a 1000 % growth scale, and I don’t know about you but that sounds like dragon like to me.

 

That growth happens on the very first quarter of the life of a crocodile and then they just “stabilize” because as a predator his size is his first line of defense, so in short they have to grow quick and also mature quick.

 

If we take this as a comparable “model” to the dragon growth maybe our fierce and fire breathing friends can achieve maturity and non vulnerable size fairly quick and spend their rest of their almost immortal lives as the full grown impotent creatures they are.

[Party Cannon 876]

Damn thorough. Unfortunately it may be all for naught. Yeah there is that crush business but do you really think Spike and Rarity are going to end up together? Got to hand it to you would be funny.

 

You do have this somewhat supporting you though:

 

 

Yeah they're both the same species but that little dork might as well have been a dragon. "HIT THE NOSE!"

[RrVPfX9cPtw59FpC 1,304]

Whoa, too much science for me. I think he grows based on his greed, from Secret of my Excess. Therefore, if he'd learned his lesson about not being greedy, he shouldn't age too much anymore.