Age on Roshar

[Contessa she/her]

So I was re-reading WoR, and at a few points it mentions that the Rosharan year is five hundred days. Does this make the earth equivalent of everyone's ages older than the number of years it states in the book? For instance, if Kaladin is nineteen Rosharan years, would he be around twenty-six earth years? (I hope I did that math right.) 

Anyway, just something that crossed my mind. I can think of a few things that might explain it, but I was wondering what you guys thought. Sorry if this has been brought up before....

[cloudjumper he/him]

Even though the Rosharan year is longer, the actual days are shorter, so one Rosharan year would be 1.1 earth years. So that would mean that Kaladin would be about 21.

[Calderis he/him]

Rosharan days are 20 hours. 

Earth equals 365 x 24 = 8760

Roshar = 500 x 20 = 10000

Assuming an hour is the same length (which we shouldn't) that's 1.141 years, which is right in line with the 1.1 years stated officially. 

[Oversleep]

21 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Assuming an hour is the same length (which we shouldn't)

IIRC Rosharan minute is indeed shorter but don't quote me on that.

Also, I think that converting Rosharan age to Earth age is meaningless - Rosharans would be used to (or perhaps adapted to) their day and year cycle.

Edited August 11, 2017 by Oversleep

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, Contessa said:

So I was re-reading WoR, and at a few points it mentions that the Rosharan year is five hundred days. Does this make the earth equivalent of everyone's ages older than the number of years it states in the book?

Yes, Brandon has confirmed that the ages given in the books are in-universe ages and if we were to convert them to Earth years, the characters would be slightly older.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

@Calderis is exactly right; the official canon conversion is precisely: 1 year on Roshar = 1.1 Earth (Scadrial/Yolen) years.

Since Rosharan days are 20 hours long, the math only works out neatly if you assume that Rosharan hours (seconds) are slightly shorter than Earth hours (seconds). Technically, this hasn't been individually confirmed (as far as I know); it may be that Peter, or Greater Roshar in general, just don't care about significant figures past 2 digits. However, for the time being, it stands as an exact conversion that hasn't been hedged or revised over the last few years.

[Contessa she/her]

Okay, thanks guys.

[Yata he/him]

You have also to notice that Roshar's people has an improved health thanks to the amount of ambiental Investiture and therefore they age a bit better rather than our world (you may notice how fit Dalinar is for a man of his age for example)

[17th Splinter he/him]

I spent some time calculating this. I believe the comparisons are this

Time.                 Earth                    Roshar

Hours                60 mins                58.5 mins

Days                 24 hrs                   20 roshar hrs /19.2 earth hrs 

Years                365 days              500 roshar days/ 400 earth days/ 1.096 earth years

 

This is just math, but I hope you like it

[The One Who Connects he/him]

On 8/10/2017 at 8:05 PM, Contessa said:

Does this make the earth equivalent of everyone's ages older than the number of years it states in the book?

While they would technically be a little bit older, this would only be significant in the later ages. 1.1 of 19 is only 20.9, while 1.1 of 50 is 55.

The key thing to understand is that if Brandon says that Kaladin is 19, he's gonna write him like a 19 yr old human. If he says that Dalinar is 50, he's gonna write the character as though he is 50, even if he'd be 55 Earth-Years old.

I'm pretty sure that Oversleep and Yata were getting at the in-universe reason for why Brandon would do that, with the ambient Investiture and being adapted to longer years and all, but just putting my 2 cents in.

[Asrael he/him]

As I have evidently displeased the questioner, this post contains the one I am referencing. (23 here not 24 sorry) 

[Asrael he/him]

Pretty certain there is a WoB that Kaladins 19 is 24 in our time.