I need to find out if there is any truth to the following statement:

 

"There are more people alive today than have ever lived since the dawn of homosapiens."

 

The argument that says this must be untrue is as follows:

 

If we assume that the average age of reproduction (for females at least) was about 20 years of age that would mean that there have been 250,000,000/20_ = 12,500,000 generations over that period._ With an average population of 250,000,000 we now can assume that there have been 250,000,000 X 12,500,000 = 3.13e15 or 3,100,000,000,000,000 people that have been alive between the dawn of mankind and the year 1500 alone (not to meantion those that have lived and died since then)._ This equates to 3,125,000 Billion which is far greater than the 6-7 Billion currently alive.

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks

Last time I checked the dead outnumbered the living 30:1.

 

Although I'm not sure what the source was classing as "human".

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.htm

 

The answer to my question is false to the statement:

 

There are more people alive today than have ever lived..."

 

:0)

<3 Snopes <3

I worry always about the constantly growing population, but remember: there is always a fixed amount of matter on earth (exept for meteors + aliens).

It'll all come out in the wash.

There is if you count energy as matter, yeah.

What? There is always the same amount of matter in the universe, and the same amount of energy, and energy is not matter! You are confusing me.

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

What? , and energy is not matter! You are confusing me.

 

energy is a equivelence of mass, so it sort of can be considered matter even though it has no intrinsic mass

 

E=mc2 dude

My point was that a large volume of matter is turned into energy. Whether biologically in respiration, or artificially (eg coal -> electricity).

 

And don't forget that energy from the sun is sequestered as matter by plants.

 

 

Anyway, this is all irrelevant to the original post. Especially if you're randomly deciding to bring the entire universe into it.

Crash said in post # :

 

energy is a equivelence of mass, so it sort of can be considered matter even though it has no intrinsic mass

 

E=mc2 dude

 

E² = p²c² + m²c⁴

 

and p = mv or hf/c

what?

At some point in time, could this statement be true? The ratio of dead to living defenately grows closer to 1:1 every year, slowly but it does. Someday, could the living overtake the dead? Could the world support it? Would it peak, then fall drasticly due to lack of food? Or oxygen?

E² = p²c² + m²c⁴

 

and p = mv or hf/c

 

hf/c = plancks constant times lights frequency, divided by the speed of light in a vacuum is the momentum of light....

hf/c = plancks constant times lights frequency, divided by the speed of light in a vacuum is the momentum of light....

 

p = h/lambda applies for anything, not just light. You could find the de Broglie wavelength (that's lambda) of a double decker bus, it's just very very small