ampersand Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 According to a calculator on the BBC website, when I was born I was the 3,311,920,537th person alive at that time and the 77,202,102,402nd person ever to have lived Obviously these are just estimates, but it made me wonder how "they" know that the world's population will reach 7billion on Monday - why not Sunday afternoon if one or two are born prematurely? Where I work, two women have given birth this week to contribute to the total, but, as they haven't yet been officially registered anywhere at what point will they be included in the 7billion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 When the births are registered? I saw the link on Facebook earlier, apparently I was 4,132,069,754th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 The increase in the number of people alive, due to births outweighing deaths, will be some thousands, maybe even some tens of thousands, each day. That means they can be fairly sure that it will go from 6,999,99X,XXX to 7,000,00X,XXX on a particular day. They couldn't forecast the exact moment at which person seven billion will arrive. Usually there's a calculation done that gives the most probably moment at which the population will click over to seven billion, and some child born at exactly that moment will be touted as the "seven billionth human" but the calculation is invariably plus-or-minus a few hours, so nobody will ever know precisely who it was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ampersand Posted October 27, 2011 Author Share Posted October 27, 2011 But surely it is a meaningless number - I can accept they can generalise over the average daily increase in the numbers in societies and countries where accurate and contemporaneous records are kept, but in areas of the world where these processes don't take place (or at least not promptly) it is surely just a complete guess - if they said that the population is estimated to reach 7 billion some time this month I'd be fine - but to say it will reach 7 billion on Monday strikes me as being just a made up date for the sake of it But then maybe I'm just being overly grumpy today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barleycorn Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 According to a calculator on the BBC website, when I was born I was the 3,311,920,537th person alive at that time and the 77,202,102,402nd person ever to have lived When the births are registered? I saw the link on Facebook earlier, apparently I was 4,132,069,754th. Thank you both for giving me your DOBs, now if I could just have your name, address and bank details... jb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archi3 Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Thank you both for giving me your DOBs, now if I could just have your name, address and bank details... jb So you have their DOB and sheffield forum username? Good luck with that one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barleycorn Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 So you have their DOB and sheffield forum username? Good luck with that one Did you not read the second half of the sentence? Do you not understand humour? jb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ampersand Posted October 27, 2011 Author Share Posted October 27, 2011 Thank you both for giving me your DOBs, now if I could just have your name, address and bank details... jb Not sure you'd be interested in taking on my overdraft Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSmith Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 According to a calculator on the BBC website, when I was born I was the 3,311,920,537th person alive at that time and the 77,202,102,402nd person ever to have lived Obviously these are just estimates, but it made me wonder how "they" know that the world's population will reach 7billion on Monday - why not Sunday afternoon if one or two are born prematurely? Where I work, two women have given birth this week to contribute to the total, but, as they haven't yet been officially registered anywhere at what point will they be included in the 7billion? It’s a gestimate, they don't take into consideration the people dying in wars, babies born in some distant part of the Amazon being born. It will be better when the gestimate is going down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Thank you both for giving me your DOBs, now if I could just have your name, address and bank details... jb You'll get nowt, and like it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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