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Monday
May172010

I'm going to die on Tuesday 19th May, 2048

Two of my favourite things are statistics and Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha is a "computation engine": it uses data available on the internet to generate answers to questions. Google can only find answers to questions that have already been asked – it doesn't create anything new.

Wolfram Alpha can access mortality statistics – data on the ages at which people died – to calculate your life expectancy. If you type "life expectancy of a [your age] year old [your sex]" it will tell you at what age you can expect to die, along with a more detailed breakdown of the likelihood of you making it to various milestone birthdays.

It can also calculate dates on which something will happen so, having got your life expectancy, you can find out on what date you can expect to die by typing "[life expectancy] years after [date of birth]".

On what day can you expect to die?

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