Exponential Dracula

Herewith, from the popular press, an excellent example of geometric (exponential) growth and its implications:

WASHINGTON (AP) — It may be the season for vampires, ghosts and zombies. Just remember, they're not real, warns physicist Costas Efthimiou.
[…]
Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month [only 1 meal a month!] — turning each victim into an equally hungry vampire [exponential growth!] — after a couple of years there would be no people left, just vampires. He started his calculations with just one vampire and 537 million humans on January 1, 1600 and shows that the human population would be down to zero by July 1602.

[Associated Press, "Count Dracula not in the numbers, physicist says",* cnn.com, 27 October 2006.]
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* Evidently the headline writer was tired; a more obvious choice: "Count Numbers, not Dracula".

Posted on October 30, 2006 at 13.30 by jns · Permalink
In: All, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science

3 Responses

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  1. Written by rightsaidfred
    on Monday, 30 October 2006 at 14.09
    Permalink

    I'm weak on vampire lore, but do they have to have blood on a regular basis? Maybe they only need blood once or twice a lifetime.

    And do their victims become vampires? I was under the impression most victims died.

  2. Written by jns
    on Monday, 30 October 2006 at 17.06
    Permalink

    Oh yes, they require regular meals, which provides the motivation for all that dramatic S&M content in vampire movies and books. I believe it is usually understood that victims (in most cases) do indeed die, but then become "undead", i.e., vampires themselves.

    Well, with one exception that I know of: a story that I wrote about a vampire who worked as a bartender at a gay bar. I altered a bit of vampire lore to suit my narrative requirements, but I'd best not go into detail here. However, no one actually got bitten, nor did anyone die.

  3. Written by S.W. Anderson
    on Tuesday, 31 October 2006 at 05.16
    Permalink

    Interesting bit of insight. However, even if the one-meal-a-month plan were to work in most of the world, there would still be a huge problem involving the Chinese. You know, suck the blood from one and a couple days later, it's like you're hungry all over again.

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