TAN 186 - A Presidential ElecTAN (Page 23)

Nice!!!  This weekend the 8+ race is a race for the cure event so they are going to make me wear a pink t-shirt.  Now I understand the whole pink and black argyle socks thing.  Still not wearing them though!

What is a Bob Ross?

it is today's google doodle!

My son asked me a question yesterday that I do not think can be answered. I know there are a few smart people in TAN and others are dumb enough to be brilliant, so I will post the question here and see what people come up.

Is there any way to determine how many people have ever lived on Earth? From the 1st person until now.

I said there is no way to tell how many people there have ever been in the world.

Ok, I do not even know what that means...

In essence no, there were no reliable census takers in early human existance.

Morning TAN!

Busy weekend of seeing a friend in the penultimate performance of her play, followed by the cast party (actors can be weird!), then spend the weekend at a Kona watching party out in the 'burbs with friends, taking part in some neighbourhood tailgating for the Bears game, then watching a cyclocross race! 

I want a cyclocross bike now. 

It means Dave has a one track mind and has forgotten about biodegredation.

Can. It depends on what we'd consider a starting point for human beings back in time.

Calculus is actually perfect for this stuff ... essentially you're adding up a bunch of equations at manymanymany points (like days in history, or maybe in this case years since everybody is born or dies in a given year) and allowing for the overlaps (since people aren't all born and die in groups at the same time, obviously).

I don't know if you can use straight calculus for this seems like you would need a rather complex model to take into account mass die offs such as in the black death.

Good Evening Your Royal Hotness Yanti Doll, Treadmill Crusher, Taxi's Bane and Goddess Of Brilliant Bewbs.

Yup!

Besides, uhh... doesn't *everyone* know his birthday, by heart, and have it marked on their calendars??

So I was right...

ALL HAIL THE HALLOWED HIGH PRIESTESS OF THE HEALING YET LEFT-HOOK YORKIE-HOLDING HONEY HYPNOMELONS!

Nah, I wouldn't do anything that precise. There's dips and bumps, but I wouldn't use an exponential-growth equation. Summation equation using say 50,000 BC as a starting point for humans, average estimated birthrates and population over, say, 50-year segments. Down and dirty (all pop estimates are very, very, estimate-y anyway), but that'd do it.

Well, it depends on the level of preciseness. If you're looking for to-a-person, you really can't get a perfect population estimate of anywhere unless you live in a tiny town and you know that on a given day nobody is being born, dying, moving in or out. Also, population data don't exist before history, and also the level of estimation varies greatly with time periods, generally improving the more recent it is.

Given that no one really knows, and can know, but also that there are ways to estimate how much the estimation is likely off (I love math!), I bet the estimated figure of total population of humans born is also estimated to be accurate within +/- 10%. That's a huge margin of error, but really not bad at all considering what we've got to work with.

Yes that would be a good down and dirty calculation. 

That was my point earlier about the lack of a reliable census so you could make a guesstimate but I think your margin for error would be rather large.

How are the free range piglets treating you these days?

HI SIR CURSEY!

Fantabulous. Did NOTHING but take a short walk at sunset (after last week's ~18hrs of training).

How you be this fine fluffy Monday?

I am better than I deserve to be on a Monday Yanti.  

I loved watching Bob Ross creating his happy landscapes.  Happy trees here and there, happy ponds, etc... though once he painted a tree completely askew from the others and said that it was an unhappy tree because the one next to it must have kicked him.   And that fro!   What an awesome fro!