Your place in history

[ampersand 10]

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?

[Rich 12]

When the births are registered?

 

I saw the link on Facebook earlier, apparently I was 4,132,069,754th.

[HeadingNorth 11]

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.

[ampersand 10]

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

[barleycorn 10]

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

[Archi3 10]

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

[barleycorn 10]

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

[ampersand 10]

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

[MrSmith 10]

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.

[Rich 12]

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!

[muckymurphy 10]

where will the planet's 7 billionth child be born?

 

my guess is libya.

 

DISCUSS.

[nomnom 10]

im guessing the US