Welcome to Earth, Population 8 Billion!
Nov. 14th, 2022 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerThe world's population will surpass 8 billion on Tuesday, 15 Nov 2022, according to a United Nations estimate (retrieved 14 Nov 2022).
For everyone— including me— who thought, Wait, weren't we at 7 billion just recently? the answer is Yes, we were! Global population reached the 7 billion mark just 12 years ago.
For those then wondering what our population growth rate is, it's 1.12% per year. If you pulled out your calculator (or relied on knowing approximately what 1/7 is) to come up with a ~14% annual growth rate, you set up the calculation wrong. To compute a compounding growth rate you've got to solve for the nth root. In this case n=12 (growth over 12 years) so you've got to solve for rate x where (1 + x)12 = 8/7.
In case anyone's wondering, yes, I do hold a degree in math— and it's from one of the top 5 math schools in the country. Though any fellow math majors would recognize instantly this is barely even math, it's high school algebra. 🤣
For everyone— including me— who thought, Wait, weren't we at 7 billion just recently? the answer is Yes, we were! Global population reached the 7 billion mark just 12 years ago.
For those then wondering what our population growth rate is, it's 1.12% per year. If you pulled out your calculator (or relied on knowing approximately what 1/7 is) to come up with a ~14% annual growth rate, you set up the calculation wrong. To compute a compounding growth rate you've got to solve for the nth root. In this case n=12 (growth over 12 years) so you've got to solve for rate x where (1 + x)12 = 8/7.
In case anyone's wondering, yes, I do hold a degree in math— and it's from one of the top 5 math schools in the country. Though any fellow math majors would recognize instantly this is barely even math, it's high school algebra. 🤣
