Vampires Matematically an Impossibility

[Joeytrom]

From Yahoo News:

A researcher has come up with some simple math that sucks the life out of the vampire myth, proving that these highly popular creatures can't exist.

University of Central Florida physics professor Costas Efthimiou's work debunks pseudoscientific ideas, such as vampires and zombies, in an attempt to enhance public literacy. Not only does the public believe in such topics, but the percentages are at dangerously high level, Efthimiou told LiveScience.

Legend has it that vampires feed on human blood and once bitten a person turns into a vampire and starts feasting on the blood of others.

Efthimiou's debunking logic: On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600.  A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.

If mortality rates were taken into consideration, the population would disappear much faster. Even an unrealistically high reproduction rate couldn't counteract this effect.

"In the long run, humans cannot survive under these conditions, even if our population were doubling each month," Efthimiou said. "And doubling is clearly way beyond the human capacity of reproduction."

So whatever you think you see prowling around on Oct. 31, it most certainly won't turn you into a vampire.

[verusselle]

Efthimiou's debunking logic: On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600.  A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.

That logic doesn't take into consideration vampires who get destroyed, chained in their coffins, or cured temporarily. 

[Gothick]

Hmmm.  seems to me somebody needs to fret less about the "vexing issue of public literacy" and pay more attention to an innate sense of FUN.

Mr. Efthimiou gets my vote for official Halloween Grinch!  Maybe Barnabas, Tom and Vampilique can go pay him a midnight visit (in a switch on Samantha's visit to a certain "Scrooge" character in a popular old Xmas episode of Bewitched) and teach him the REAL truth about ... the Living Dead!  (bum bum BUMMMMM!)

spooky cheers,

G.

[LdyAnne]

From Yahoo News:

A researcher has come up with some simple math that sucks the life out of the vampire myth, proving that these highly popular creatures can't exist.

University of Central Florida physics professor Costas Efthimiou's work debunks pseudoscientific ideas, such as vampires and zombies, in an attempt to enhance public literacy.

hmm maybe he should be invited to the Central Florida DS Fan Club halloween party. He sounds like a real live wire

[rainingwolf]

Just FYI, I picked up a DVD yesterday called "Vampires Anonymous"--about a vamp who, after eating his last girlfriend in his '57 Chevy, decides he needs to join a 12-step program to break his habit!  It's hilarious! If you want a fun, silly, Halloween movie, it's a gem!

[Zahir]

Of course you can complete screw with the mathematical conclusions if you change the premises, thus...

(1)  Vampires do not kill everyone upon whom they feed.
(2)  Simply dying from a vampire's bite does not turn one into a vampire.
(3)  Vampires often don't know how to make another vampire.
(4)  Those vampires who do know may not choose to do so for a variety of reasons.
(5)  Vampires can also feed upon animal blood, and will.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I hate to jump on the bandwagon to discredit a fellow mathematician's hypotheses, but you've hit the nail, er, maybe it's better to say stake    on the head with those five points, Zahir. Sloppy, sloppy work on Mr. Efthimiou's part.    One can only hope he wasn't actually serious about the whole endeavor and simply did it as a bit of Halloween fun - or at least what was his idea of fun. 

[MagnusTrask]

Hmmm.  seems to me somebody needs to fret less about the "vexing issue of public literacy" and pay more attention to an innate sense of FUN.

I liked that remark.

Debunkers "believe" too much in debunking, and thus aren't much more objective than the debunkees.   Literary science-fiction fandom is filled with guys who swear the general public believes in the supernatural, and are all a bunch of ignorant "luddites" (that word comes up a lot).  

[Raineypark]

"Luddites" have nothing to do with belief in the Supernatural.

Luddites were opposed to the use of machines instead of human hands in making things.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

"Luddites" have nothing to do with belief in the Supernatural.

And, sadly, it's certainly not the first time that a group of people might use a term as a putdown of others when they don't even realize what that term actually means. 

[MagnusTrask]

"Luddites" have nothing to do with belief in the Supernatural.

Luddites were opposed to the use of machines instead of human hands in making things.

I know.   I threw that in as another example of how such people tend to depict large masses of people as being ignorant.   Superstition, paranoia about technology, etc..    I think they exaggerate all of this.