How many people have been born on Earth since the beginning?

Pagiedamon

106,456,367,669 and counting... http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/286911.html Nov 25 08, 5:15 PM

Verbonica

"Please note that the 106,456,367,669 population figure is based on the 1995 article. There have probably been a few dozen more added since that date." http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/286911.html Nov 25 08, 5:28 PM

Pagiedamon

Hence the "and counting". :-) Nov 25 08, 6:28 PM

zbeckabee

Here's the breakdown through 2002: YEAR/Population/Births Between Benchmarks 8000 B.C. 5,000,000 1,137,789,769 1 A.D. 300,000,000 46,025,332,354 1200 450,000,000 26,591,343,000 1650 500,000,000 12,782,002,453 1750 795,000,000 3,171,931,513 1850 1,265,000,000 4,046,240,009 1900 1,656,000,000 2,900,237,856 1950 2,516,000,000 3,390,198,215 1995 5,760,000,000 5,427,305,000 2002 6,215,000,000 983,987,500 Number who have ever been born 106,456,367,669 http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx Nov 25 08, 9:31 PM

queproblema

Well, yes, but.... As the article Zb quotes makes very clear, this is mere speculation, although by educated guessers. "Any such exercise can be only a highly speculative enterprise, to be undertaken with far less seriousness than most demographic inquiries. Nonetheless, it is a somewhat intriguing idea that can be approached on at least a semi-scientific basis. "And semi-scientific it must be, because there are, of course, absolutely no demographic data available for 99 percent of the span of the human stay on Earth. Still, with some speculation concerning prehistoric populations, we can at least approach a guesstimate of this elusive number." The author's aim was to debunk the idea that 75% of all humans who have ever been born are alive right now. Nov 26 08, 2:21 AM

triviapaul

The updated number from the PRB is 106 billion for 2002. Other estimates of the total number of people who have ever lived range approximately from 45 billion to 125 billion, with the more robust of these falling in the 90–110 billion range http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Number_of_humans_who_have_ever_lived Addition from Holland: Quest magazine voted "How many people have ever lived?" the best question of 2008. It then asked mathematician Peter Grünwald to answer this question. Building on an earlier American study (probably the one quoted by Zb) he came up with 107,5 billion. Amazingly, this wonderful piece of trivia news seem to not have made it into English language newspapers. Only Mr. Grünwalds homepage is available in English. http://www.grunwald.nl/ For completeness sake only: http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/2648022/__Honderd_mld_mensen_ooit_op_aarde__.html Nov 26 08, 9:37 AM