"Vampires A Mathematical Impossibility" Debunked
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061025/sc_space/vampiresamathematicalimpossibilityscientistsays
"Vampires A Mathematical Impossibility, Scientist Says"
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.
I will now proceed to disprove everything Dr. Efthimiou has said. Scientifically and mathematically and with plenty of vampire logic.
His logic is flawed, severely, in that he did not take into account the existance of more than one species of vampire...and only one take on the legend.
Let us go back to his original example. If a vampire were to bite a human in January of 1600, this does not guarentee that there would be two vampires by February. First, there is no guarentee that the vampire took enough blood to kill the human; the vampire could have taken one drink and left the victim alone to recover. Second, provided that the vampire did in fact kill the human, there is no guarentee that the vampire performed the blood exchange necessary to transform the human into an immortal. Third, if the vampire did transform the human into a fledgling, it is doubtful that the vampire would be stupid enough to create a new fledgling each month...that would be like having another baby to take care of every month and would certainly lead to the self destruction of the original vampire very shortly (perhaps after six months.) Consider the case of Anne Rice's Lestat de Lioncourt, who has an absurdly high number of fledlgings. He is nearly 260 years old by this day and has only fathered six or seven fledglings...and of those fledglings, only four survive. Dracula, who has arguably been alive since 1431 and un-alive since at least 1476, has, by 1898, only three brides whom he calls his own as fledglings. If Dracula had been creating a fledgling a month, he would have a veritable army by the time Jonathan Harker came to meet him.
There is also no guarentee that the vampire, if faced with a choice of meals, would decide to go after a human. While human blood may be considered by some vampires to be the most pleasing and fulfilling, other vampires may prefer to drain animals, such as rats or larger creatures, such as livestock. For example, Rice's Louis de Pointe du Lac, who spends much of his fledgling life (and beyond) draining rats of life because he cannot cope with taking a human life.
While some vampires are compelled to eat every night, most vampires, as they mature, need less and less blood in order to survive, thus this exponential equation would not be continuous. The same vampire that needed to kill once a month in order to survive may, in a few years, only need to kill once every two months, then once every year and so on until human killings became rare. This combined with the creation of new vampires creates a balance; for every vampire who ages enough to no longer need to kill, there will be a fledgling to take his place. Likewise, we can reverse this equation so that for ever new fledgling who craves blood, another vampire has matured past needing to drink.
Other species of vampires, most notably those found in Underworld, do not guarentee immortality through their blood, even if attempting to turn a human. Most humans when bitten by these vampires die due to deadly viruses transmitted through the blood. Thus, if ten humans are infused with immortal blood, only about one or two will survive and go on to crave blood. Because, unless outside forces take hold, vampires do not die natural deaths, this small percentage of population increase does not harm the total population of vampires; for every vampire who dies due to outside causes (vampire hunters, suicide, exposure to deadly sunlight depending on the species), about 2 or 2.5 vampires will take his place. Logically, this means that the vampire population is growing; it is not. For every two vampires created, one vampire goes into hibernation and thus does not require blood or other resources (coffins, grave dirt, etc. depending on the species). If the vampire population is growing, it is growing slowly.
The vampire race is known for its culling; when the population grows out of control, oftentimes unworthy fledglings are destroyed expressly for the purpose of preserving human life and secrecy. This culling serves to ensure that the vampire population will never outnumber the human population. Mathematical science, specifically the exponential equation, does not take this culling or the selectivity of reproduction of the race into account, thus severely flawing the numbers and conclusion.
Therefore, mathematically the exponential equation developed to disprove the existance of vampires is flawed and incorrect. This equation does nto prove that immortal beings who survive on the blood of the living and prowl the night do not exist, on the contrary, the numbers are about as meaningless as biological evidence that suggests that vampires are impossible. (Biology, the study of life, does not apply to vampires, who are Un-alive, ergo any biological studies designed to disprove the vampire race are not valid.)
The conclusion is simple: scientists and mathematicians ought to find better things to do with their time and kindly cease to attempt to ruin the magic for the rest of us.
"Vampires A Mathematical Impossibility, Scientist Says"
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.
I will now proceed to disprove everything Dr. Efthimiou has said. Scientifically and mathematically and with plenty of vampire logic.
His logic is flawed, severely, in that he did not take into account the existance of more than one species of vampire...and only one take on the legend.
Let us go back to his original example. If a vampire were to bite a human in January of 1600, this does not guarentee that there would be two vampires by February. First, there is no guarentee that the vampire took enough blood to kill the human; the vampire could have taken one drink and left the victim alone to recover. Second, provided that the vampire did in fact kill the human, there is no guarentee that the vampire performed the blood exchange necessary to transform the human into an immortal. Third, if the vampire did transform the human into a fledgling, it is doubtful that the vampire would be stupid enough to create a new fledgling each month...that would be like having another baby to take care of every month and would certainly lead to the self destruction of the original vampire very shortly (perhaps after six months.) Consider the case of Anne Rice's Lestat de Lioncourt, who has an absurdly high number of fledlgings. He is nearly 260 years old by this day and has only fathered six or seven fledglings...and of those fledglings, only four survive. Dracula, who has arguably been alive since 1431 and un-alive since at least 1476, has, by 1898, only three brides whom he calls his own as fledglings. If Dracula had been creating a fledgling a month, he would have a veritable army by the time Jonathan Harker came to meet him.
There is also no guarentee that the vampire, if faced with a choice of meals, would decide to go after a human. While human blood may be considered by some vampires to be the most pleasing and fulfilling, other vampires may prefer to drain animals, such as rats or larger creatures, such as livestock. For example, Rice's Louis de Pointe du Lac, who spends much of his fledgling life (and beyond) draining rats of life because he cannot cope with taking a human life.
While some vampires are compelled to eat every night, most vampires, as they mature, need less and less blood in order to survive, thus this exponential equation would not be continuous. The same vampire that needed to kill once a month in order to survive may, in a few years, only need to kill once every two months, then once every year and so on until human killings became rare. This combined with the creation of new vampires creates a balance; for every vampire who ages enough to no longer need to kill, there will be a fledgling to take his place. Likewise, we can reverse this equation so that for ever new fledgling who craves blood, another vampire has matured past needing to drink.
Other species of vampires, most notably those found in Underworld, do not guarentee immortality through their blood, even if attempting to turn a human. Most humans when bitten by these vampires die due to deadly viruses transmitted through the blood. Thus, if ten humans are infused with immortal blood, only about one or two will survive and go on to crave blood. Because, unless outside forces take hold, vampires do not die natural deaths, this small percentage of population increase does not harm the total population of vampires; for every vampire who dies due to outside causes (vampire hunters, suicide, exposure to deadly sunlight depending on the species), about 2 or 2.5 vampires will take his place. Logically, this means that the vampire population is growing; it is not. For every two vampires created, one vampire goes into hibernation and thus does not require blood or other resources (coffins, grave dirt, etc. depending on the species). If the vampire population is growing, it is growing slowly.
The vampire race is known for its culling; when the population grows out of control, oftentimes unworthy fledglings are destroyed expressly for the purpose of preserving human life and secrecy. This culling serves to ensure that the vampire population will never outnumber the human population. Mathematical science, specifically the exponential equation, does not take this culling or the selectivity of reproduction of the race into account, thus severely flawing the numbers and conclusion.
Therefore, mathematically the exponential equation developed to disprove the existance of vampires is flawed and incorrect. This equation does nto prove that immortal beings who survive on the blood of the living and prowl the night do not exist, on the contrary, the numbers are about as meaningless as biological evidence that suggests that vampires are impossible. (Biology, the study of life, does not apply to vampires, who are Un-alive, ergo any biological studies designed to disprove the vampire race are not valid.)
The conclusion is simple: scientists and mathematicians ought to find better things to do with their time and kindly cease to attempt to ruin the magic for the rest of us.