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What happens when the tree dies? While some trees have lived for a very long time, my impression is that 100 years is a very long time for a tree, and if a brid

What happens when the tree dies? While some trees have lived for a very long time, my impression is that 100 years is a very long time for a tree, and if a bridge takes "decades" to build, then 100 years might not be relatively that long. A typical modern bridge might take 5 years to build 7-8km and will last as long as people care to use and maintain it. A 20 metres living bridge will takes at least 2-30 years (less wouldn't count as decades, plural) and would live for how long? Above pessimism aside, I would love to cross the river thames on a living bridge!

chrisweekly 7y ago
100 years is the blink of an eye for a tree. Trees will astound you if you learn more about them. Many species can live for tens of thousands of years; beneath the surface, some apparent "groves" are in fact interconnected appendages of a single living organism which can survive for hundreds of thousands of years.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  > 100 years is the blink of an eye for a tree That's a very slow blink. Being generous and for easy math, let's say the tree lives 100,000 years. 100 years is 1/1000th of the lifetime, .001. Generally the blink of an eye is in reference to human time scales. Again, let's be generous and say a blink takes an entire second, and a human lives 72 years. 1 / (72 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60) = .0000000004 Many orders of magnitude off from the blink of an eye.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+the+blink+of+an+eye https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+the+blink+of+an+eye
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
> While some trees have lived for a very long time, my impression is that 100 years is a very long time for a tree These trees are ficus elastica, which are pretty short-lived as trees go, lasting only about 200 years in their natural habitat. Most of the trees you see every day will live for centuries.

chrisweekly 7y ago

100 years is the blink of an eye for a tree. Trees will astound you if you learn more about them. Many species can live for tens of thousands of years; beneath the surface, some apparent "groves" are in fact interconnected appendages of a single living organism which can survive for hundreds of thousands of years.

newnewpdro 7y ago
> 100 years is the blink of an eye for a tree That's a very slow blink. Being generous and for easy math, let's say the tree lives 100,000 years. 100 years is 1/1000th of the lifetime, .001. Generally the blink of an eye is in reference to human time scales. Again, let's be generous and say a blink takes an entire second, and a human lives 72 years. 1 / (72 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60) = .0000000004 Many orders of magnitude off from the blink of an eye.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+the+blink+of+an+eye https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/in+the+blink+of+an+eye

PhasmaFelis 7y ago

> While some trees have lived for a very long time, my impression is that 100 years is a very long time for a tree These trees are ficus elastica, which are pretty short-lived as trees go, lasting only about 200 years in their natural habitat. Most of the trees you see every day will live for centuries.