(November 30, 2009 at 9:52 am)theVOID Wrote: Because these two humans got off that Ark 4000 years ago, that means that 1.5 million people would have to have been born every year on average... I really hope that i don't need to explain how extremely unfeasible the math is here....
(November 30, 2009 at 11:30 am)theVOID Wrote: Where's Adrian? I need some math done.
If two people could have maximum one child every 9 months and each child could have a child after 15 years and each person died after 70 years years how long would it take to reach 6 billion individuals?
I wasn’t going to post here any more because I got all the information that I was looking for when I came here (Thank you all for that. All your comments were helpful.) But your post indicating that the math for reaching 6 billion people in 4000 years starting with 8 people (Noah, his three sons, and their wives) is unfeasible is worth a comment.
Assume that one starts with three couples (let’s say Noah and his wife did not have any more children).
Assume that each couple has three children that reach procreation age (they could clearly have many more but let’s assume that they either die or do not procreate) and each of these finds a spouse and has three more children that reach procreation age, etc.
Assume that once each couple has their three children that reach procreation age, they die, leaving only the latest generation. (Much worse than your assumption that they live for 70 years giving overlapping generations.)
In some generations there might be an odd man or woman, so assume these also either die or do not procreate.
You never indicated how many children each couple had so I assumed the minimum amount for growth for each couple, three.
One can determine the number of generations to produce 6 billion people using an Excel spreadsheet.
Starting with 6 in the first cell, A1, the formula for calculating the next cell (given the above assumptions) would be =IF(ISODD((A1/2)*3),((A1/2)*3)-1,((A1/2)*3)). The formula for the next cell would be =IF(ISODD((A2/2)*3),((A2/2)*3)-1,((A2/2)*3)), etc.
Each cell would be the next generation and at the 53rd cell, the number is almost 7 billion. Given 40 years per generation (giving couples 25 years starting at age 15 to have three children that reach procreation), that would mean it would take 2120 years to reach almost 7 billion people. Doesn’t seem unfeasible to me.
