Don't Forget. We Are All Related. I Can Prove it Mathematically. Try to Follow.

Ok. How many people have ever existed in the entire existence of the world? I know many of you will counter by saying it's impossible to know this number, but an estimate will be used in my logic and calculations. The Population Reference Bureau (sounds official) estimates that 107 billion humans have ever lived.

What do we assume the average age of one family generation is? I'd say using 25 years would be a very conservative estimate considering teenage childbirth was far more commonplace thousands of years ago than it is now. Don't forget this number, but we won't need it for now.

Now try to remember all the maths you know. Remember those things called exponentials? You know like X squared and Y to the 7. Yeah that stuff.
How many grandparents do you have? 4? Interesting. Let's see here.

2^2 = 4. Hmmmm so it seems that you if raise 2 to the power of two it will tell you the number of grandparents you have. How many Great great grandparents do you have? Well each of your 4 grandparents have two parents. 8. Let's check it.

2^3 = 8 - Simply amazing! What is this sorcery? Ok so 2^n means you have [n-2] 'greats' tacked to the title of your ancestors.

So what happens just 37 generations out or [37 x 25 years] = 925 years????? Let's do the Math!

2^37 = 137,438,953,472 (137.44 Billion > the Population Reference Bureau's estimate of only 107 Billion Humans ever living)

But wait a second here Imhotepic you're probably saying to yourself. We've only went back 925 years and we've already exceeded the estimate from the PRB! Well, to that I say they should improve their estimation techniques, I'm only using math here. I welcome any of you to find flaws in my math or logic. If anything my estimates are conservative due to my use of 25 as the age of average childbirth and for the age between generations.

How is it a conservative estimate you ask? Let's check the math again.

If I had instead used 16 years as the age of average childbirth throughout the history of mankind the 37 generations required to generate your [[37-2]/2] great grandmothers and grandfathers would take place in just [37 X 16 years] or 592 years.This is the point at which we would exceed current PRB estimates of all time ever humans ever to live. Not even 600 years ago when we know humans have been around in some form for at least 100,000 years. At least.

I welcome your responses my brothers and sisters and relatives of all degrees. This was just a nerdy way to make us set aside a few minutes to realize we each have more than millions of ancestors and that inevitably these ancestors overlap. Don't be fooled by phenotypic expression, we are all one. Love you brothers and sisters.

I just realized I forgot to account for early tribal incest and incest at any point for that matter. My numbers are way too high.

You're absolutely correct. There is no one on Earth who is further away than 50th cousin. It can't happen. All you need is one Marco Polo, one Dr. Livingstone, once ancient guy to travel the Earth and we are ALL related. And you don't really have to go back that far. 1000 years will do it. 2 to the 40th power is over a trillion. End of story.

a reply to: Imhotepic

Yeah, exponential growth does not work because there comes a time most of your ancestors are cousins, it is called pedigree collapse

a reply to: Indigent

Thank you for your wisdom. I learned something today. Niiiiiice.

a reply to: Imhotepic
You forgot to factor in how many species originated somewhere else?

a reply to: smurfy

That math would only affect the PRB's numbers, not my calculations. I made enough mistakes of my own. As Indigent said, Pedigree collapse. When two first cousins have children those children will have at most 6 great grand parents instead of what we now perceive as normal (8 great grandparents). Some brilliant mathematician help me modify my equation to actually correctly model ancestor count considering pedigree collapse. HALP.

originally posted by: smurfy
a reply to: Imhotepic
You forgot to factor in how many species originated somewhere else?

We're only talking humans here. What are you talking about? Aliens?

a reply to: Imhotepic

This is Brilliant and beautifully positive! Something I've really been hoping for on ATS amidst all of the doom and gloom and hate porn filling this site. Star and Flag!!! Good work!

a reply to: 191stMIDET

Thank you for your kind words.

a reply to: Imhotepic

This is messing with my head a bit. The further generations back you go, the more grandparents of the descendants, coinciding with a smaller population on Earth the further back you go.

Man, it'd be cool if accurate records worldwide had been kept since the inception of humanity. Imagine some of the scandals! "Did you know Great^24-Grandma had a tryst with Genghis Khan?! That's probably where uncle Larry's anger management issues come from."

Cool thread. Too many unknown variables to really figure it out accurately, but it sure gets the gears turning!

originally posted by: schuyler

originally posted by: smurfy
a reply to: Imhotepic
You forgot to factor in how many species originated somewhere else?

We're only talking humans here. What are you talking about? Aliens?

I think he may be hinting at other species of hominid. The term human can mean a few different things. Some use it to mean all hominids (the entire homo genus over the last 3 million years). Some use it to mean exclusively homo sapiens(past 200k years). Some take it one step further and only include modern humans (past 30k years). Those would be 3 entirely different numbers, but yeah there really is no formula to make such calculations, as the population fluctuated for quite a while and even bottle necked at one point to between 10 and 30 thousand individuals.

With the new math,2 + 2 = 5.
Does that mean you are my sister or my parakeet?

You also forgot to factor in the average family size.

Interesting thought experiment though.

originally posted by: smurfy
a reply to: Imhotepic
You forgot to factor in how many species originated somewhere else?

Now try insects.

a reply to: Imhotepic

I don't know the math but since I do genealogy, (having recently found my father (I think). I know at the 4th grandparent level we have 128.

My only known siblings are maternal and among the 4 of us there are 3 fathers with 2 having the same father. Yet I share dna with all siblings on their paternal side as well as mine and one siblings father was born in Va and us in Tx.

We are all more connected than we think and it usually doesn't go that far back.

Ran a friends genealogy connected to my dna on ancestry and we share some dna ancestor. Really a small world.

originally posted by: atrollstalker
With the new math,2 + 2 = 5.
Does that mean you are my sister or my parakeet?

What is wrong with you? I am not the first erson to wonder that.

a reply to: Imhotepic

We are all related. I have had some good luck on the net finding closer relations as my maiden name is quite rare. There is a website just for the name, made by a 3rd cousin. I found his son on FB and we talk. I found a cousin by marriage, her husband, who would have beeb my blood relatiive died.

I have had a best friend since I was 4, her mother married my cousin when I was about 13. Now my best friend and I are cousins.

I dated my uncle whe I was a teen..he was one of the sons of my grandfather's second family after he divorced my grandmother. Never had any idea. Found out later. Thank God there wasn't offsring.

If I looked further, I would find more.

a reply to: reldra

LOL. This is so true. I lived in a small town and kept being told by grandparents I couldn't go with this or that person because we were related...at least on my maternal side.

originally posted by: 191stMIDET
a reply to: Imhotepic

This is Brilliant and beautifully positive! Something I've really been hoping for on ATS amidst all of the doom and gloom and hate porn filling this site. Star and Flag!!! Good work!

I agree. This is a very thought provoking thread. Thanks to the OP for starting it.

With the availability of mass transportation between continents being only a recent phenomenon (say, within the last 300-400 years) doesn't this mean that, even today, most of us are more closely related to each other within our own ethnic groups. And that some of ua are related more distantly with a differing ethnic group, but more recently ?

Does that make sense ?