How long would it take...

cHodAX

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...for a person, seeing 1 new face every 1 second to see every face of every person on the planet? No blinking, no sleeping, no eating, totally uninterupted. How long would it take?

I had this conversation over a pint tonight with a friend tonight and he insisted with his remedial maths that it would take a couple of decades. Slightly inhebriated I crunched the numbers at much closer to 200 years but my brain is old and foggy these days so please help me out and crunch the numbers for me. Ideally explain how you came to the answer as well so I can email to my friend and prove we are probably both wrong. :p

I was working on the basis of 6.5 billion people, not sure if that is accurate though these days.
 

ileks

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about 206 years? 6.5 billions divided by 60x60x24X365 (minutes hours days years)
 

tris-

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206 years if we work on the basis of lengths of time.
 

Raven

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206 years and ninety days including leap years if that population figure is correct.

Or there abouts.
 

nath

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Alternatively - the trick question, NEVER because the rate of birth means you'll never see all the people. But then if you're asking how long it take to see 6.5 billion people at a rate of one per second, then that's already answered :).
 

nath

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About 4,131 births per second, apparently.
 

Ch3tan

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and the death rate? You'd miss some as they died as well.
 

old.Tohtori

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By seeing 4 at a time(or a family perhaps?), which is nearly eually easy to, or hard infact, remember you'd only need 50 or so years. Lifes work if any.
 

Cadelin

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About 4,131 births per second, apparently.

The way you have written this number is confusing. The number of people born per second is: 4.131 and not 4131. So just over four per second. That means there is roughly 360 000 people born every day or 130 million every year. If around 4000 people were born ever second there would be 130 billion people born every year!
 

cHodAX

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Crikey, my maths was almost spot on, not bad considering I was halfway to be pissed as a fart. :D
 

Cadelin

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Crikey, my maths was almost spot on, not bad considering I was halfway to be pissed as a fart. :D

A good one to confuse drunk people.

Take two very long pieces of rope and wrap one around the equator. Then take the second piece of rope and make a loop so large that the earth can fit through it with 1 meter to spare in every direction. How much longer is the second rope compared to the first?

Its just over 6 m (or 2*pi meters) but most people (especially when drunk) will guess something much much larger
 

nath

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The way you have written this number is confusing. The number of people born per second is: 4.131 and not 4131. So just over four per second. That means there is roughly 360 000 people born every day or 130 million every year. If around 4000 people were born ever second there would be 130 billion people born every year!
You're absolutely right that should be 4.131. But at least I was right as far as the filthy euros were concerned what with their use of a comma for decimal places. :)
 

Marc

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A good one to confuse drunk people.

Take two very long pieces of rope and wrap one around the equator. Then take the second piece of rope and make a loop so large that the earth can fit through it with 1 meter to spare in every direction. How much longer is the second rope compared to the first?

Its just over 6 m (or 2*pi meters) but most people (especially when drunk) will guess something much much larger

Most people would be too drunk to care!! :D
 

tris-

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Im not sure your average sober person would have any idea about it either.
 

Zebolt

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A good one to confuse drunk people.

Take two very long pieces of rope and wrap one around the equator. Then take the second piece of rope and make a loop so large that the earth can fit through it with 1 meter to spare in every direction. How much longer is the second rope compared to the first?

Its just over 6 m (or 2*pi meters) but most people (especially when drunk) will guess something much much larger

And that it's the same length when you do the same thing around say a golf boll will probably confuse ppl even more :)
 

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