In the life extension movement, longevity escape velocity (LEV) or actuarial escape velocity is a hypothetical situation in which one's remaining

life expectancy Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of its birth, current age, and other demographic factors like sex. The most commonly used measure is life expectancy at birth ...

(not ''life expectancy at birth'') is extended longer than the time that is passing. For example, in a given year in which longevity escape velocity would be maintained, technological advances would increase people's remaining life expectancy more than the year that just went by. The term is meant as an analogy to the concept of

escape velocity In celestial mechanics, escape velocity or escape speed is the minimum speed needed for a free, non- propelled object to escape from the gravitational influence of a primary body, thus reaching an infinite distance from it. It is typically ...

in physics, which is the minimum speed required for an object to indefinitely move away from a gravitational body despite the gravitational force pulling the object towards the body. For many years in the past, life expectancy at each age has increased slightly every year as treatment strategies and technologies have improved. At present, more than one year of research is required for each additional year of expected life. Longevity escape velocity occurs when this ratio reverses, so that life expectancy increases faster than one year per one year of research, as long as that rate of advance is sustainable. Mouse lifespan research has been the most contributive to conclusive evidence on the matter, since mice require only a few years before research results can be concluded. The term "longevity escape velocity" was coined by biogerontologist

Aubrey de Grey Aubrey David Nicholas Jasper de Grey (; born 20 April 1963) is an English author and biomedical gerontologist. He is the author of ''The Mitochondrial Free Radical Theory of Aging'' (1999) and co-author of ''Ending Aging'' (2007). He is known ...

in a 2004 paper, but the concept has been present in the life extension community since at least the 1970s, such as in

Robert Anton Wilson Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, futurist, psychologist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized within Discordianism as an Episkopos, pope and saint, Wilson ...

's essay ''Next Stop, Immortality''. The concept is also part of the fictional history leading to multi-century youthful lifespans in the

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

series The Mars Trilogy by

Kim Stanley Robinson Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American writer of science fiction. He has published twenty-two novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his ''Mars'' trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many ...

. More recent proponents include

David Gobel David Gobel (born 1952 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American philanthropist, entrepreneur, inventor, and futurist. He is and CEO of the Methuselah Foundation, CEO of the Methuselah Fund, and one of the first to publicly advance the idea of lo ...

, co-founder of the

Methuselah Foundation The Methuselah Foundation is an American-based global non-profit organization, based in Springfield, Virginia, with a declared mission to "make 90 the new 50 by 2030" by supporting tissue engineering and regenerative medicine therapies. The orga ...

and

futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abo ...

, and technologist

Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, inventor, and futurist. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and e ...

, who named one of his books, '' Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever'', after the concept. The last two claim that by putting further pressure on science and medicine to focus research on increasing limits of

aging Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...

, rather than continuing along at its current pace, more lives will be saved in the future, even if the benefit is not immediately apparent. The next step in spreading the idea and the term itself was the writing of Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae of the book ''

Ending Aging ''Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime'' is a 2007 book written by biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey, with his research assistant Michael Rae. ''Ending Aging'' describes de Grey's proposal f ...

'', in 2007. Kurzweil predicts that longevity escape velocity will be reached before humanity will realize it. According to him, as of 2018, it will be reached in 10-12 years.

References

{{Transhumanism footer Ageing Life extension Gerontology Transhumanism

See also

References