# When will the mass of the deceased equal the mass of the Earth??

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 19, 2003, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978 "2003-12-19T15:47:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978/21 "2003-12-19T20:26:29Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Dr\_Paprika \*  
> \*\*Except a corpse doesn’t weigh 65kg. That water tends to disappear, and that’s most of the weight. \*\*

The water weight is counted, since the weighing is done before decomposition.

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**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978/22 "2003-12-19T20:45:25Z")

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Gotcha.  
So in 1787 yeqrs the total will begin to _exceed_ the mass of the Earth.

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**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978/23 "2003-12-19T20:50:09Z")

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Is this for a book or something?

I keep getting this picture of evil alien robots exponentially mass breeding humans into slave labor and piling up their bodies in space to form a new planet. :eek:

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**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978/24 "2003-12-19T20:58:57Z")

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No book, but I probably have a hundred goofy questions like this that I usually forget before I can get them in thread form.

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**Author:** ![UselessGit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/74df32/32.png) [@UselessGit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UselessGit)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978/25 "2003-12-19T23:26:19Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Achernar \*  
> \*\*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? \*\*

😃 Pure gold…

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**Author:** ![gcarroll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/65b543/32.png) [@gcarroll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gcarroll)\
**Post date:** [December 20, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-mass-of-the-deceased-equal-the-mass-of-the-earth/219978/26 "2003-12-20T02:48:48Z")

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The 1,786 years that assumes exponential population growth is impossible because at some point there is not enough area to support all those people. Even if you assume expansion into space (say, building habitations from asteroids, plastic bubbles in space, or what not) we would be resource limited. The 920,000,000,000,000 years sounds more (I hate to use the word here) realistic.

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