A Mathematician Calculated The Size of a Giant Meatball Made of Every Human (sciencealert.com) 80
A mathematician on Reddit calculated that if all 8.2 billion humans were blended into a uniform goo, the resulting meatball would form a sphere just under 1 kilometer wide -- small enough to fit inside Central Park. ScienceAlert reports: "If you blended all 7.88 billion people on Earth into a fine goo (density of a human = 985 kg/m3, average human body mass = 62 kg), you would end up with a sphere of human goo just under 1 km wide," Reddit contributor kiki2703 wrote in a post ... Reasoning the density of a minced human to be 985 kilograms per cubic meter (62 pounds per cubic foot) is a fair estimate, given past efforts have judged our jiggling sack of grade-A giblets to average out in the ballpark of 1 gram per cubic centimeter, or roughly the same as water. And in mid-2021, the global population was just around 7.9 billion, give or take.
Of course! (Score:5, Funny)
We call that the Soylent Green meatball.
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Anyway, a mathematician on Reddit? CROFLOL!
Was the name of that "mathematician" translivergrunt by any chance? This seems perfectly in line with the topic of his posts at what he seems to be concerned about.
That's all about all he could maybe do properly, maybe; Use grade 3 mathematics to calculate the diameter of a sphere given the average weight/density and world wide population.
This is a silly article.
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Don't give conspiracists & crazies more ideas, they've been gaining too much power of late.
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Please don't give the AI god any ideas.
That is a lot of Soylent Green (Score:3)
Published in the JIR (Score:4, Funny)
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Or the journal of irresponsible results
That's not news (Score:2)
Re:That's not news (Score:5, Interesting)
John Brunner's 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar [wikipedia.org]
The title is an allusion to a thought experiment in which it was calculated that all the human beings in the world could fit shoulder to shoulder on the Isle of Wight; given population growth, Brunner expanded this to the island of Zanzibar.
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Stand on Zanzibar is perhaps the most prophetic sci-fi novel ever.
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We must now... (Score:1)
...make this meatball. It is our purpose.
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For his noodliness. Ramen!
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I think the FSM would want humans to be alive and worshiping him, not puréed into a meat product. But who am I to know His desires?
Volume (Score:2)
the resulting meatball would form a sphere just under 1 kilometer wide -- small enough to fit inside Central Park
Does Central Park (assuming NYC) have a "volume"? I looked it up and it's not 1km wide, but it's longer than 1km long, so how does this 2D rectangle to 3D sphere comparison work?
Re: Volume (Score:4, Informative)
The article has a picture. The edges of the meatball stick over the edge of the park, but only once you get to an altitude higher than the surrounding buildings.
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This video from XKCD [youtube.com] provides some context.
Assuming you could (1) puree all of humanity into one giant sphere, and (2) manifest that into existence right in the middle of Central Park...it wouldn't remain there for long.
Which is it? (Score:4, Funny)
7.88 or 8.2 billion?
And more importantly, how long at what heat (gas or electric oven) for the meatball to be well done?
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And more importantly, how long at what heat (gas or electric oven) for the meatball to be well done?
Each person radiates 100W of heat (2000 calories per day), so according to my calculations, the sphere of all people would radiate 261 kW/m2. Let's bring this down to the dimensions of a toaster oven, roughly 20x20 cm, then the radiation is about 10 kW per toaster-oven, which is plenty to cook the surface.
But this is the steady state solution, which might take a long time to reach (days, months, years?). In the meantime the people would be dead and stop radiating heat. So I don't think the people would
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Fixed it for you: "Each LIVING person radiates 100W".
I don't think dead people minced into a meatball will radiate anywhere near that much energy.
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Re: Which is it? (Score:1)
Coming soon to Intergalactic IKEA
Visualization? (Score:2)
Can someone do a visualization of humans getting dumped into a grinder over Central Park and forming into a meatball?
Re: Visualization? (Score:4, Informative)
A "Mathematician"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, right, everyone knows that what mathematicians do is do trivial arithmetic on their pocket calculator. And Reddit is well-known for being the primary place where mathematicians publish their research results. :-(
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Not nearly as bad as a mole of moles (Score:5, Interesting)
XKCD: https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/ [xkcd.com]
How many cans of spam does that make? (Score:1)
Very for help (Score:3)
Is everything ok at home?
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Babies are pretty small. And I don't know how logically they are taking the culinary components regarding binders and seasoning but at the very least I hope they're excluding bone and skin and blood, which do account for a lot of weight.
Breadcrumbs? (Score:4, Funny)
Did this mathematician consider the impact of the breadcrumbs on the weight and volume of a meatball? Or is he doing calculations for a "bad" meatball? Hmm, meatballs made of humans. Definitely a "bad" meatball.
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My first question is whether the bones make it in.
Similar calculation (Score:2)
I did a similar calculation for oil. If you collected all the unrefined oil consumed by the United States in one day into a cube what would it look like? I no longer remember the exact figures, but a visual in my mind is clear. Imagine a 100 yard football field in the US. The cube is hovering above the field: a huge black mass of oil. The cube would be roughly 40% larger than the end zone lines.
Ball (solid) or sphere (hollow)? (Score:3)
The article and summary mix both shapes.
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Mathematics (Score:2)
Sphere is a collection of points that are at the same distance from the center in 3D space. It contains surface only and does not include interior, just like a circle is holow.
Circle != disc (in 2D), sphere != ball (in 3D)
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By your definition, a sphere is a 2D surface warped around 3D space. It is a bounding box for the volume and does not represent the thing itself. It's still equally accurate to use the term when talking about size. It describes the "outline."
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That definition is generic - as in math books (or Wikipedia).
The article lacks a definition (and implicit one is not the math one), but your explanation resolves that to be a "volume enclosed by a sphere" rather than a literal sphere. Thanks, I did not understand it that way!
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Critically though Mathematics is the only area in which it's defined that way. Science in general does not, and more or less uses sphere where "ball" might otherwise be used - for example, you'll find planets described as spheres, not balls.
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That explains well my confusion stemming from mathematics. This might be compounded by language differences.
Planet is a very interesting example! In planetary context I relate "sphere" to biosphere or atmosphere, a thin (compared to the planet radius) layer where life/air is present. Such sphere roughly corresponds to the planet surface - closer to the mathematical definition of a sphere.
Re:Ball (solid) or sphere (hollow)? (Score:4, Insightful)
"To serve man" (Score:4, Funny)
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Amazing meatball! [youtube.com]
On our way to Zap Branigan's world (Score:3)
Men, you're lucky men. Soon you'll all be fighting for your planet. Many of you will be dying for your planet. A few of you will be forced through a fine mesh screen for your planet. They'll be the luckiest of all.
Now do it for cows (Score:2)
Is the ONLY possible respose to that.
A question that of course will not be asked because the answer to it would be abject horror.
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Spherical cows. In a vacuum.
Not new (Score:2)
Extra-Terrestrials (Score:1)
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What if the nearest inhabited system is Vega?
Idiocracy is already here (Score:4, Funny)
Kudos to this mathematician for solving this hard problem, which is well above the capabilities of 90 percent of 2nd graders.
Seems correct (Score:2)
Seems small - what about bread crumbs and eggs? (Score:2)
Who would want to eat a meatball of animal protein goo?? Give it some texture. Also, you need to add 1/2 of bread crumbs and an egg to bind it together. The would make it a much larger meatball.
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Momma Mia.... (Score:2)
Well, at least we know our alien overlords will love us.. (with some Marinara sauce and a little cheese on top).
Checking the math⦠(Score:2)
If you blended all 7.88 billion people on Earth... (Score:2)
And no one left to clean up afterwards!
62kg? (Score:2)
Looks like I'm 50% over the average.
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1/4 of the world population is under 18 years old. 5% of that is babies.
Estimating â Calculating (Score:2)
On top of spaghetti, (Score:2)
I lost my poor meatball-comprised-of-all-humanity-mashed-together
When somebody sneezed
All I want to know is... (Score:1)
Giant meatball made of every person?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Herbs and Spices? (Score:1)
Ominous tone (Score:2)
Will need preservatives (Score:2)
How many Olympic sized swimming pools? (Score:2)
Or how many elephants would that be, stacked one on top of the other?
I'm having trouble visualizing a 1 km meatball. Can somebody help me out?
Important data. (Score:2)
This places an absolute upper size on the alien battlefleet seeking to use Earth as a food source.
korben Dallas was ahead of his time (Score:2)
Negative. I am a meat popsicle
Do we need a "mathematician" for that? (Score:2)
Density? (Score:2)