Starting with todays population and weighing each person at the time of death, at what time will the weights of all the deceased add up to the weight of the Earth??
Assuming a life expectancy of 60 years, a world population of 6 billion, and an average body mass of 65 kg, 920,000,000,000,000 years from now.
'Course over the next 920,000,000,000,000 years most of those stiffs are going to lighten up a bit.
I see dead people… everywhere.
Not to mention get rather, how can I put it, recycled.
Mmmm, corpse dust.
Achernar, was the exponential population growth considered?
I’m not sure what is the meaning of the question, since the deceased (and the living alike) are made of the "materials’ which constitute the earth and anyway are “recycled”. So, it’s not like the deceased would add anything to the planet’s weight.
And anyway, assuming the question make sense, it totally depends on the growth rate of the population in the future, as already mentionned.
Never.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Nothing added, nothing gained.
:smack:
I assumed constant population. Exponential growth is unrealistic, but let’s say we assume population is exponential with doubling time DT = 40 years. How long it takes depends on the distribution of lifetimes in this case, but let’s assume everybody lives exactly LT = 60 years. Call R the ratio of the mass of the earth to the total mass of people now (=15,000,000,000). Then the amount of time is equal to:
DT × log[sub]2[/sub]((2[sup]LT/DT[/sup] - 1)R + 1) = 1387 years
:smack: R = 15,000,000,000,000. That makes the total time = 1786 years.
Oh, very good. That was exactly the answer I was looking for. It even sounds realistic, 1,786 years.
Could you nail down the exact day? How bout the exact minute?
Just kidding…
Thanks.
clair, gluteous, it is a hypothetical Q, obviously. I know the material is recycled and all that. Achernar seemed to understand it…
Achernar, where is that mass coming from?
What about the mass of all of the deceased bacteria and viruses and plankton and molds and fungi and plants and insects and fish and amphibians and reptiles and birds and non-human mammals?
(sorry if I left anybody out)
Petroleum will conserve 'em.
As for the OP’s question…
Never.
Man, I did say it was unrealistic. Assuming we start our interstellar expansion right now, and colonize every star system we come to, by that time, every star within 1786 light years will have some tens of thousands times the current population of the Earth around it. I don’t think we can count on tens of thousands of inhabited worlds per star.
Food for worms, so to speak.
Huh?
HUH???
Our interstellar expansion right now is exactly ZERO, you do realize?
When will the mass of the deceased equal the mass of the Earth??
The OP did say Earth, did it not?
When did the OP’s question get expanded into infinite worlds?
Infinite? I’m just talking about a billion or so.
Yes, the OP said the dead sum to the mass of the Earth. Where did the OP say we stay on Earth for this whole time?
Ah!
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Make it simple for me;
Let’s say that everything together now weighs ten pounds. Is the OP asking when will that be five pounds corpses and five pounds everything else?
That would be, uh, 1786 years.
Peace,
mangeorge
Don`t make it harder than it is. gluteous, the op specified PERSONS.
Everyone dies.
Weigh them at death, before they`re buried.
Keep a running total of the weights.
When that running total equals that of the weight of the Earth, stop.
Archernar said 1,786 years. sounds reasonable.
Except a corpse doesn’t weigh 65kg. That water tends to disappear, and that’s most of the weight.
No, not corpses, just tally the weight of all people that die. Each body gets counted only once, at death. Weigh that person and then forget about the body. This is all on paper.