Equation proves that immortality is an impossible goal.
Humanity has dreamed of immortality since the beginning of time. It's no coincidence that it's the subject of important literary classics, such as "Dracula" by the Irishman Bram Stoker, or children's films like the "Twilight" series, or more cult classics like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".
While for hundreds of years science left open the possibility of humans becoming immortal, mathematics has finally buried that old dream with the publication of the study " Intercellular competition and the inevitability of multicellular aging ," authored by biologists Joanna Masel and Paul Nelson of the University of Arizona (United States).
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In an article published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , the researchers claim to have demonstrated that overcoming aging is mathematically impossible. To reach this conclusion, Masel and Nelson created a mathematical equation capable of demonstrating that, in a context of competition, either inactive cells accumulate or cancerous cells proliferate; in other words, it is impossible to achieve perfect cellular selection and stop aging.
Complex calculations performed by scientists conclude that making these two scenarios happen simultaneously is mathematically inconceivable. Therefore, Masel and Nelson concluded that aging is an "incontrovertible truth" and mathematically inevitable.