Yea... here's a summary... dude thinks he's the first person to come up with this... spends countless hours on his thesis thinking he's really come up with something fresh... takes 2 minutes for another guy to use his calculator on his phone to show how completely wrong you are.

Please troll in other forums with your ground shaking "new" theories.


fail

I was wondering if anyone was going to point that out.

the question was if it was mathematically absurd, not if it was realistic.

My apologies. I was unclear. My point was that absolute population growth depends on the previous population - there can be more absolute growth on a base of 1 billion people than 1 million. But the growth rate can be the same for each. From your earlier post, I wasn't sure that was clear.

Of course, that has no effect on the overall point - it is not absurd that the Earth's population could grow from 2 people to 7 billion people in 10,000 years. It didn't, but it's not absurd based simply on necessary growth rates.

but given the 2^x example that means, given that people die, (and ill assume that at the end f the generation the procreators die) each new couple has to procreate 4 times

2^2 = 4 and those original 2 die
2^3 = 8 and those last 4 die
2^4 = 16 and those last 8 die
etc

it seems pretty absurd to me

According to Mrs. Methuselah, he couldn't perform after he turned 485.

damn, impotent for almost 500 years, thats gotta be a bummer.

I'm not sure I'm following this at all. For there to be population growth, on average each generation has to replace itself, plus an increment. Using your couples base, each couple has to have more than two children on average - with enough of an increment to compensate for early mortality and those people not having children, among other factors. In recent years, growth rates have been quite high, but not always and everywhere. Some societies have birth rates that will not sustain current population levels.

If you are assuming that two people have two children and nothing else happens - then yes, the population will not grow. If you are saying that 2 grows to 4 and then to 8 and then to 16, but the previous generation dies, you still have growth from 4-2=2 to 8-4=4 to16-8=8 which is the same growth rate - it will just take one additional generation to reach any particular target. But those are not annual growth rates, so other assumptions would have to be made.

As calculated earlier, a growth rate of .22% per year will do the job. Put another way - 2 times 1.0022^10,000 = 7 billion more or less. Now clearly with 2 or 4 people, the growth rate cannot be exactly .22%. But it can easily be 50% in some years. So I'm still not seeing the absurdity.

this implies a 200% growth rate every generation, and with it being consistent, would break down to an average of 10% growth per year, which is absurd. only is quoted in his post, then he says its not absurd. it is absurd, hence why he quoted only. that all im discussing, not a .22% growth rate


and i want to discuss this a bit more because it does depend. the more people there are the more chances there are to procreate for one person, which brings other factors into it all.

forgive me if im wrong but the slope between any two points on the graph would be the growth rate correct? the graph, while useful for my initial post as to looking at the beginning (10,00BC) is severely not to scale. this would mean the line is even steeper as time progresses meaning that growth rate is dependent on population size

errrrrrr actually if it were to scale the slope would appear to be flatter year to year. but that would also negate saying given the graph that it would be possible to hit 2 at year 8000 BC.

how would you take any point on the graph and using a constant growth rate (.22%) negatively would you get how many less people there should be in previous years?

would it be .9988^-x where x= years?

No because it will be a positive exponentially increasing fucntion, not a positive exponentially decreasing function.

No, doubling the population is a 100% growth rate. Also, it's not consistent - it's exponential, so the annual rate would be about 3.5%. And it's not absurd, because at that rate, as bambam_jr posted, it would "only" take 660 years to reach current population levels. By allowing 10,000 years, the required growth rate falls below one-quarter of one percent.

Sure, there are many factors that affect the actual growth rate. You assumed there was some mathematical absurdity here. There isn't. It didn't actually happen. But that is a different issue.

Correct.

Not sure what point you're making here. The graph uses a logarithmic scale, so a constant growth rate would show as a straight diagonal line. That's why I pointed out the 4,000 BCE to 2,000 BCE segment. The line is steeper in recent years because the growth rate is higher - but that doesn't mean it depends on population size. And in terms of mathematical absurdity, it just reduces the necessary historical growth rate even further below absurd levels. Hold on a sec, I just had a thought...