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From: michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc,net.bio
Subject: Re: World population benchmark
Message-ID: <599@bcsaic.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Jul-86 14:15:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: bcsaic.599
Posted: Thu Jul 10 14:15:52 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jul-86 01:23:15 EDT
References: <3553@hplabsb.UUCP>
Reply-To: michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael maxwell)
Distribution: net
Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle
Lines: 16
Keywords: Billions and billions, population, United Nations
Xref: watmath net.misc:9886 net.bio:600

In article <3553@hplabsb.UUCP> marvit@hplabsb.UUCP (Peter Marvit) writes:
>According to the world population watchers at the United Nations, today
>(7 July) the 5 billionth person will be born.

Something I've always wondered: of all the people who've ever lived,
what percentage are alive today?  I suspect it's a rather large
percentage, and it makes me wonder why there aren't more people like
Plato, Galileo, Michaelangelo, Bach, Einstein.  (Or, heaven help us, 
more like Genghis Khan, Hitler, Alexander, Attila the Hun, etc.)  
We seem to be lacking in "greats" (except here on usnet, of course :-).  
Any thoughts?  Or flames about improper newsgroups?  (It's all Peter
Marvit's fault, of course :-)
-- 
Mike Maxwell
Boeing Artificial Intelligence Center
	...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm