But if you are told that you have a 10 percent chance of dying within the next year, you might worry a lot more, perhaps even choosing to live your life differently. And if you are told that you have 10 percent chance of dying within the next minute, you'll probably panic. So it's the imminent possibility of death that drives the fear--which means that the most sensible way to calculate fear of death would be to think about it on a per-hour basis.