The tree · Window · World event · Root: on the scale of the whole window
Someone verifiably lives past 122, the longest human life on record
Jeanne Calment's 122 years has stood since 1997 and no verified case has come within three years of it since, which is the strongest evidence that current medicine moves average lifespan but not maximum lifespan. A verified case beyond it is the first sign that the ceiling has moved, which is what the strong and open scenarios need.
What counts as it having happened
A person's age at death, or current age while living, exceeds 122 years and 164 days, verified by the Gerontology Research Group or an equivalent body with documentary evidence of birth.
Settled by: Gerontology Research Group validated supercentenarian records
Probability, by longevity scenario
| baseline2071 ± 8 | moderate2080 | strong2095 | radical2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5% | 8% | 15% | 45% | 60% |
Each number is the chance this resolves yes before that scenario's window closes, given that everything it depends on resolves first. Estimated 2026-09-08.
Why these numbers: The record has stood since 1997 and late-life mortality has not moved; passing it needs a therapy that lowers that rate, so near-impossible by 2071 and better than a coin flip only in the 150-year scenario.
How it could happen, and where physics would have to give way
Long shots belong in the tree by the first founding rule; the second says they must be written plausibly all the way to the edge of the impossible, with the mechanism named and the breaking point stated plainly.
The mechanism: Someone born around 1905 to 1930 who has already reached 110 benefits from late-life medicine that did not exist for Calment (better cardiac, infection, and fall care), and survives the last few years at a mortality rate that today runs near fifty percent a year. Later, a person who received an approved aging therapy in their sixties or seventies carries a slower rate of decline into their hundreds.
The breaking point: Annual mortality past 110 appears to plateau near fifty percent, so each further year is a coin flip and 122 needs a run of a dozen heads; the record has not moved in almost thirty years despite far more people reaching 100. Passing it by more than a year or two requires that some intervention lower the late-life mortality rate itself, which nothing tested in humans has done.
Notes
Checked 2026-09-08: the record is 122 years and 164 days (1997); the second-longest verified life is 119 years and 107 days (2022), just over three years short, and the third is 119 years and 97 days (1999).
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The record itself is data/W-window.toml in the public repository.