So, having been educated as an engineer, I find the notion of conservation of various properties to be fundamentally correct: conservation of mass, energy, angular momentum, etc.
Thinking about this year’s Olympics, I believe there is another quantity which is conserved: age of athletes. By now everybody knows about the controversy surrounding the age of the Chinese women’s gymnastics team. I mean, really, my seven-year-old has more mature facial features than some of those girls.
However, I think this is actually a necessary event. Why? Think of the Little League World Series; there’s an event with the opposite problem. Some of those “kids” have been shaving for five years, no matter what their Dominican birth certificates say.
I think, in fact, that’s what happened—since age can neither be created nor destroyed, and the Chinese needed a few extra years, they got ‘em from the Dominican Republic. Conservation of age.
I hear there are some hockey players in Ontario in under-18 leagues who have some years they’re willing to unload, cheap…