Professor Jim Al-Khalili, the physicist set to deliver the 2026 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, has a pointed message for billionaires spending heavily on extreme anti-aging experiments: Trying to live forever may be a poor use of the limited time any of us actually have.
Al-Khalili said some of the ultra-wealthy are "quite literally, wasting their time" by pursuing eternal life instead of concentrating on how to live well now, The Guardian reported.
Here's what to know
The lecture series, which is due to air on BBC platforms, will revolve around the subject of time.
While previewing the talks, Al-Khalili used the current fascination with dramatic life extension schemes to make a more down-to-earth point about the limits of human life.
Among the examples he referenced was tech executive Bryan Johnson's use of plasma injections from his teenage son, something Johnson found did not help.
For Al-Khalili, stories like that raise not only scientific questions but also deeper ones about what people choose to do with their lives.
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"We have a finite interval of time in which we exist in the universe. And the more I study the nature of time, the more I think about it, the more I realise that I just want to make the most of the time that I have," he remarked.
Anti-aging products, supplements, and wellness treatments can cost enormous amounts of money while offering little proven benefit.
For many households, that kind of spending can add financial strain to the already high cost of staying healthy.
More background
The 2026 lectures will also address a central problem in physics: why time seems to flow in a single direction.
Al-Khalili intends to present his own answer to the "arrow of time" question, while also touching on relativity and the concept of time travel.
His explanation includes Albert Einstein's finding that time is not experienced identically by everyone, and that gravity can change how it passes.
Traveling into the future is theoretically more plausible than traveling backward, but it is still a far cry from immortality.
For most people, healthy aging is shaped less by science fiction-style interventions and more by ordinary risks and everyday habits.
What can be done?
Living better for longer often comes down to reducing known risks, protecting daily health, and avoiding products that promise dramatic results without solid proof.
That can include cutting indoor pollution at home, improving ventilation, and replacing gas-powered appliances when possible.
If you're looking for a practical place to start, modernizing your home can help reduce exposure to pollutants, often lowering energy bills too.
People can also switch to gentler cleaning options, read ingredient labels carefully, and focus their spending on measures with clearer benefits rather than hype.
"We're [here for] a blink of an eye compared with the age of the universe," Al-Khalili observed.
"If I spend that blink of an eye trying to extend it to two blinks of an eye, I'm not sure if that is actually a worthwhile thing to be spending my life doing."
Where can I learn more?
These stories dig into the practical side of the issue raised here: the everyday factors that shape health and longevity. They cover diet, chemical exposures, and heart risks.
• A study suggests plant-based diets may improve life expectancy for people with obesity or diabetes.
• Scientists linked increased brain cell death to forever chemicals, underscoring how exposure can shape aging.
• In older women, PFAS exposure may raise cardiovascular disease risk more than expected.
• Scientists tied a common plastic chemical to heart disease deaths and global harm.
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