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garinda · 10-01-2007, 01:36

Ok, I can't sleep, so I thought I'd share my thoughts with anyone who may be remotely interested.

We all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, sixteen great great grandparents, thirty two great great great grandparents, and so on, and so on.... the numbers doubling each generation.

If we average that there are four generations per century, in a thousand year period we will all have 1,009,511,627,776 direct ancestors.

I hope my maths isn't wrong. I think it's 2 to the power of 40, and I had to get Google to do it, because my calculator didn't have enough digits. Any way it's a huge number.

Since the population of the UK in 1000 AD was roughly 1,420,000 that means we all must be related in some way, and I suppose we should count ourselves lucky not to have eleven fingers or webbed toes.

Any comments, or corrections to my mathematics, will be appreciated.

10-01-2007, 01:36	#1
garinda Give, give, give member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Overlookin' ducks & geese Posts: 32,411 Blog Entries: 293 Liked: 27 times Rep Power: 16468	One big happy family. Ok, I can't sleep, so I thought I'd share my thoughts with anyone who may be remotely interested. We all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, sixteen great great grandparents, thirty two great great great grandparents, and so on, and so on.... the numbers doubling each generation. If we average that there are four generations per century, in a thousand year period we will all have 1,009,511,627,776 direct ancestors. I hope my maths isn't wrong. I think it's 2 to the power of 40, and I had to get Google to do it, because my calculator didn't have enough digits. Any way it's a huge number. Since the population of the UK in 1000 AD was roughly 1,420,000 that means we all must be related in some way, and I suppose we should count ourselves lucky not to have eleven fingers or webbed toes. Any comments, or corrections to my mathematics, will be appreciated. __________________ 'If you're going to be a Kant, be the very best Kant there is my son.' Johann Georg Kant, father of Immanuel Kant, philosopher.