If you have ever wondered how much humanity would occupy if it was a giant meatball, quiet: you are not the only one

Once, many years ago, I came up with a stupid question, At the level of Yahoo Answers. If I spit a lot, can I dehydrate? My reasoning was that, at some point, I would lose the ability to create fluid, but it did not happen a good moment of laughter with those present. There is an internet corner in which my question would have been taken very seriously: Reddit. And it is precisely where the definitive question is answered: how great a meatball made with all human flesh.

At the moment, We are about 8.2 billion people running around the world (although there are those who think we have left Between 1,000 and 3,000 million along the way). Consult that real time number It is dizzy and addictive, and it is really difficult to “visualize” how much we are more than 8,000 million people. A lot, yes, but … how much?

There is graphics and maps that try to reduce this so that we have a perspective of what the Asian population supposesfor example, but it is still complicated that we visualize what it would mean by together more than 8,200 souls in the same place. As I say, in Reddit there is a very special place, one called ‘they did the math‘In which users post absurd questions and solve themselves using all possible mathematical seriousness and rigor.

The great human meatball

We are going to focus on that idea of the “great human meatball.” Kiwi2703 was the one start This great debate, with simulation included. The parameters he took were 7,880 million existing people at that time, with a calculation of 62 kilos of average weight and a density of 985 kg/m³.

Mixing everything and creating a compact ball, we would have a sphere of just under a kilometer in diameter. To contextualize everything much more, Kiwi shared a drawing in which we can see that the human meatball would be much higher than the Manhattan skyscrapersbut I would enter Central Park.

As we say, the updated numbers would make the meatball be somewhat larger because we are 400 million more humans (and we will continue to increase until Let’s reach 10,000 millionS By the end of this century before starting to fall) but it is curious that we occupy so little space within our planet (once we have pressed in a ball, of course).

This Absurd questions is a sciencebut taking them seriously can be really fun. Examples: would it be possible to put a rocket into orbit if the propulsion were candies mixed with Coca-Cola? The conclusion is that nosince it does not use Coca-Cola Light and because releasing co₂ from an aqueous solution does not have enough energy to achieve the necessary thrust.

In another, a photograph of a type that has a structure like a harness that allows to have a compressor and a split of a air-conditioning Next to a battery to literally have a portable air conditioning. The question It is how long it can work and the calculations point to between one and two hours, but it depends a lot on the way we choose.

Because yes, there are many real absurd questions, but others that force us to think and use those resources that we learn in the studies and think that they will not help us from nothing. An example? When I know look for calculate the weight of a huge cube of tungsten Next to a man, a really dense material. The users exposed the density of the metal, the height that man could have, the possible dimension of the cube and calculated the weight.

And, at the end of the day, the calculation that all humanity can form a meatball that between Central Park is not worth much, but if you run out of subjects to talk about and You hate awkward silencesIt is definitely a good resource. For now, I’m going to see if my spit question has been resolved in Reddit.

Image | Reddit (Kiwi2703)

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