Death after 18 birthdays

Hope the thread title isn't too morbid.

A little factoid I recently came across intrigued me, and I thought I would express it in the form of a puzzle. No, it’s not nearly so clever as the Wizard’s recent puzzle on poisoned wine, and it’s not particularly math-oriented, though this seemed like a reasonable sub-forum in which to post it.

So here’s the problem:

A person dies after having reached just 18 birthdays. What is the extreme range (minimum and maximum) of the possible number of days that he could have been alive until the time that he died? (Let’s treat it as if birth and death both occur at noon and not worry about fractional days.)

Extra Credit (since my students always liked that): Name the famous person, well-known for music he wrote, who inspired this puzzle and tell how many days old he was when he died.


Note: I suppose I need to clarify a definition, just because some of us nerdy folks on this site might like to point out the implications of a different interpretation. I don’t consider the day that I emerged from the womb a “birthday,” in the sense of this puzzle. To me, my first birthday was the day that I turned one year old, 365 days later.


If you care to hide answers behind spoilers, that's fine, but many others are likely to peek. Maybe in this case I could suggest that bare answers and/or guesses may be posted in the open, with explanations, calculations, and Extra Credit answers posted behind spoilers, so that others who get different answers aren't immediately aware of whether you screwed up or figured out something they overlooked.

Will take a shot at the extra credit. Ritchie Valens and 6,476 days.

Edit: Doh! he did not make it to a full 18 years. In my best Emily Litella voice: never mind.

I dunno, Doc, I think just giving my answers in this case might be a hint in and of itself. How about if I put my answers under one tag, and my explanation in a separate one? Peekers gonna peek anyway. :)

Quote: waasnoday

Will take a shot at the extra credit. Ritchie Valens and 6,476 days.

Edit: Doh! he did not make it to a full 18 years. In my best Emily Litella voice: never mind.

Actually, I would guess that your answer is correct on the EC. It seems well within the spirit of the question, anyway. :)

Joeman: I'll give you 1 out of 2 on min/max. Nice start.

Quote: beachbumbabs

Quote: waasnoday

Ritchie Valens and 6,476 days.

Actually, I would guess that your answer is correct on the EC. It seems well within the spirit of the question, anyway. :)

I have to go with waasnoday's edit. Ritchie Valens only had 17 birthdays, if you follow the definition I called out. Yes, his premature death could have been an inspiration, but I really got the thought based on another music writer who lived closer to the max answer instead of a bit shy of the minimum.

I think I know who it is, but I missed my shot. It is not Otis but there were several others around the right age that also died with Otis when their plane went down. Now I have "The Dock of the Bay" playing in my head.

King Tut died at age 18. Born in Arizona, moved to Babylonia, King Tut. Delighted generations with that one, don't you think?

Quote: waasnoday

I think I know who it is, but I missed my shot. It is not Otis but there were several others around the right age that also died with Otis when their plane went down. Now I have "The Dock of the Bay" playing in my head.

Don't feel too badly. I've got La Bamba in my head.

Para bailar la bamba

Para bailar la bamba .....

Quote: Ayecarumba

What About...

I recall the calendar was "reset" at some point in history. Could this affect the min/max?

Quote: teliot

Show Spoiler

If you were born on February 30, 1712, then you have a long life ahead of you.

http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1712&country=21

In response to Ayecarumba's and teliot's posts:



I confess that:

(1) I had not considered this factor when I came up with the puzzle, and I suppose it would give a different answer for the minimum number of days, if the person were alive at just the right time.

(2) I had never heard of the extreme issue shown in teliot's spoiler. Is that really how they did things there? Was it done anywhere else? BTW, I don't see how that can be the result of the same factor, since it goes in the opposite direction.


Edit: I found this info to explain #2 above.

If you were born on PSR J1719-1438 b, you'd be about 39 hours old on your 18th birthday.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/26/us-planet-diamond-idUSTRE77O69A20110826
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_J1719-1438_b

Nope. Don't think I've ever met anyone from there.


Guess I neglected to go far enough to nail down all the definitions.

:-)

Joeman:
That's what I got, not considering the special case that Ayecarumba alluded to and I described above. Very well done! Want to give the answer to that special case, too?

I'm posting from my phone now. When I get to my computer, I'll post the Extra Credit answers.

Quote: Doc

I don’t consider the day that I emerged from the womb a “birthday,” in the sense of this puzzle. To me, my first birthday was the day that I turned one year old, 365 days later.

Yes, but... that's not your birthday. If you were born once, the day it happened is your birthday. The celebrations usually fall on the anniversary of that event.

(I am surely not above being "That Guy". Anyway, back to the common usage of the term...)



Not going for extra credit, since I think that would involve leap seconds, and my brain just isn't there this morning.


Edit: no, I didn't peek.

As promised, here are my answers. These do not consider "really" special situations, where normally-expected days are deleted from the calendar (as first noted by Ayecarumba and later expanded upon by me), or "extremely" special situations (oddities), where there was a month/day combination that will perhaps never appear again (as first noted by teliot and later expanded upon by a link I provided.)