Sea of Lifelines
Digital Print
2020
This image is made from individual curve segments, where the distances between the endpoints in each of the segments are randomly drawn from a distribution of ages at the time of death in the USA during 2007, resulting in a rough visual representation of the lengths of lives. The pattern of individual lifelines is evocative of moonlit wave crests, our individual lives merely liminal ripples on the vast sea of humanity.
Background and Inspiration
I first explored the idea of using curves of random length to represent lives for the December 2019 issue of Mathematics Magazine. This is another image in that series.