Vampires a Mathematical Impossibility, Scientist Says

Buffy Summers

Buffy Summers

Yataro
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Sineya
Sara Goudarzi
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Wed Oct 25, 5:15 PM ET

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.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061025/sc_space/vampiresamathematicalimpossibilityscientistsays
 
Oh no's?! *covers ears* LALALA!

Ha! It lies! Must do the whole sucking thing between the two.
I can believe!
 
Scientists getting Laid a mathmatical impossibility.

If one Scientist a Month has a crack pot idea and works on it and has one assisitant then the following month a new one has another idea with an assistant thats 4 in two months.....they will never get laid!!!


Jeez louise, the planet is suffering Global Warming, Cancer, h5n1 threats, biological warfare and this guy is contemplating the possibility fo Vampires!!!!

As for the people who believe in them, well i'm with that guy who thinks fences around train tracks aren't needed. If you're stupid enough to go down the tracks and get splattered, well we really don't need you spreading your seed.
 
Except that his theory doesn't take into account the existence of a slayer keeping the vampire population under control.

Silly scientist type man! :rolleyes0
 
Arcane said:
Except that his theory doesn't take into account the existence of a slayer keeping the vampire population under control.

Silly scientist type man! :rolleyes0
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Haha 😛

But anyway, yeah, scientists can be odd sometimes...
 
Yeah I totally agree with the loss of their time here... wait... do they get paid to do those "research" ... cause then i'm just gonna turn into a scientist and start thinking up silly theories that I can prove wrong with random obvious arguments...
 
Just sounds to me like these scientists did partake a little too much of the medicinal Peyote.....for "research" of course.

Our government grant money at work, folks. Geesus.....
 
You know, I think that the scientists simply got bored, and instead of thinking "let's work on a cure for cancer" they thought "lets try and see if vampires exist!" Complete waste of time, and the fact is, they could be doing better things with their time. Like getting lives.
 
Did anyone read it?

For one thing it as a Scientist - Not scientists, so it was only a waste of his time, secondly he was a physics professor so most of his time wouldn't have been spent trying to cure cancer.

And most importantly, he has come to this conclusion using math so it probably did cost any money to research and probably took a day, at the most to figure out.

If people believe it then it's fair enough someone should disprove it!
 
S
Schillaci
Yeah, I agree
I just reread that article and realised that he based his theory on the idea that every human bitten was then turned into a vamp.

Whilst some vampire lore holds to that being the case there is the just as popular idea (as used by Joss) that vamps only turn a limited number of their victims, the rest simply being food. With that in mind the theory, whatever you might think of it, kind of falls apart.

Just a thought.
 
C
Croft Storm
Good point - so the Buffy mythology is indeed possible
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