Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

To: WhiskeyX
It was once observed that if there ever were a hypothetical instantaneous trasporter to beam emigrants off of the Earth to extraterrestrial habitats because the Earth and its remaining inhabitants were doomed to destruction, it would be impossible to evacuate more than a fraction of the Earth’s population. The reason given was that humans would breed more humans faster than the transporters could instantaneously transport them off of the Earth. I don’t know wheether or not their math would hold up to scrutiny

It's not too difficult to find that out. The population of Earth grows pretty slow - so slow that we can treat it as a constant. (It does not change considerably within a year or two.)

There are 6 billion people on the planet. Let's say the average lifespan is 70 years (all countries combined.) Within 70 years 6 billion people will die, and another 6 billion people will be born to replace them. This means that every year (6,000,000,000/70) = 85.7 million people are born, or 235,000 per day. That's a serious number.

Now, let's assume we have a teleport that accepts a single file of people walking into it. People can walk at 2.5 mph, and you want them to be spaced by 2 yards. 2.5 miles of the line will contain 2,200 people, and they will go through the portal within 1 hour. Since the teleport will not be closing for lunch, 2,200 * 24 = 52,800. So now we know, we need about five teleports - or one large enough to admit five people abreast. This does not look like an impossible requirement, assuming that you have the technology for constructing a teleport across the galaxy :-)

100 posted on 11/24/2012 10:10:45 PM PST by Greysard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 84 | View Replies ]


To: Greysard

Ah yes, but the emergency requires the evacuation of the entire Earth’s population of 5 billion people and the newborn. At the rate of your teleporter’s 2,200 people per hour, you’ll require more than 311 years to evacuate this 6 billion plus population or 311 of these teleporters or more for one year. This assumes of course the TSA screening and union work stoppages are not included in the estimates....


101 posted on 11/24/2012 11:15:05 PM PST by WhiskeyX
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson