// Program to test the e-mail claim: // "If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never // end because of the rate of reproduction. // China's birth rate for 2007, taken from: // http://www.indexmundi.com/china/birth_rate.html birthrate = 13.45 / 1000 / year //println[(1/birthrate) -> years] // China population estimate, June 2007 // http://wikitravel.org/en/China pop = 1_321_851_888 // Number of people marching abreast numAbreast = 8 // Marching speed. This is taken from an estimate of my walking speed. (About // 3.4 mph, reduced for marching.) speed = 2 mph // Distance between rows. distance = 5 feet // Distance marched per year distPerYear = year * speed // Linear density of people density = numAbreast / distance // Number of people that march by per unit time personvelocity = density * speed println[personvelocity + " people walk by in a second."] println[(personvelocity * year -> "million") + " people walk by in a year."] timestep = 1 week time = 0 s remaining = pop do { println[format[time, years, 2] + "\t" + format[pop,1,0] + "\t" + format[remaining,1,0]] time = time + timestep remaining = remaining - (personvelocity * timestep) // Change "pop" to "remaining" in the equation below if only people who // *haven't* marched by yet are eligible to add new kids to the line. born = pop * birthrate * timestep pop = pop + born remaining = remaining + born } while remaining > 0