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28 October 2011

What's your number? There are around 7 billion people on the planet today. According to this site, when I was born, I was the 3,308,901,131st person alive on Earth.
I was the 2,704,438,477th person alive on Earth, and the 76,040,606,761st ever. (as of Feb 14th, 1954).
posted by pjern 28 October | 08:24
Damn pjern beats me, I was the 3,252,711,795th. I'm often the oldest these conversations.
posted by octothorpe 28 October | 08:39
What a wonderful opportunity to talk about significant digits.
posted by Wolfdog 28 October | 10:08
What a wonderful opportunity to get caught NOT lying about your age.
2,785,441,573rd
posted by oneswellfoop 28 October | 11:13
2,419,798,515th
posted by Obscure Reference 28 October | 11:22
When you were born, you were the:

4,373,363,910th person alive on Earth

78,917,639,471st person to have lived since history began
posted by ufez 28 October | 11:29
Neat

When you were born, you were the:
4,313,471,957th person alive on Earth
78,823,401,702nd person to have lived since history began

My little brother was born 11 years later:
5,248,591,511th person alive on Earth
80,284,609,236th person to have lived since history began
posted by bluesapphires 28 October | 11:36
Is this something I would have to be alive to get?
posted by Hugh Janus 28 October | 11:54
Life, don't talk to me about life.

(Significant digits, on the other hand...)
posted by Eideteker 28 October | 12:26
Our numbers all look so LOW compared to the 7,000,000,000 of today. That sure happened fast (relatively speaking).
posted by BoringPostcards 28 October | 12:43
That's the thing about exponential functions.
posted by Wolfdog 28 October | 13:01
Hmm. 4,181,949,748.
posted by mykescipark 28 October | 13:31
3,434,906,346th person alive on on Earth, and just about that many were born after me. It boggles the mind.
posted by deborah 28 October | 14:28
3,124,124,905th
posted by arse_hat 28 October | 14:48
(Significant digits, on the other hand...)


Oh, yeah. We get this a lot here in Canada with news stories taken from wire services or whatever. They translate the units into SI metric with no thought given to significant digits.

So a phrase like "The rocket was travelling at approximately 1,000 MPH" gets published here as "The rocket was travelling at approximately 1,609.344 km/h" and that just makes me squint when I see it.

It gets even worse when they do this with common expressions. I have seen "We should have seen this problem coming 1.609 kilometers away." as a direct quote from somebody in a news story.
posted by FishBike 28 October | 15:06
First!

actually, 4,528,206,563rd
posted by rmless2 28 October | 15:15
I am not just another number! I am somebody! (Well, somebody #4,413,326,078 ... crap, I am just another number.)

I have seen "We should have seen this problem coming 1.609 kilometers away." as a direct quote from somebody in a news story.

Wow, impressive dedication to localization, though shouldn't quotes be left intact, perhaps with converted numbers in parenthesis?
posted by filthy light thief 28 October | 18:05
3,571,384,645

Nixon election week.

Coming up on another birthday. Don't know how I made it or how much longer I'll stick around!
posted by rainbaby 29 October | 12:22
When I was born, I was the 3,102,040,582nd person alive on Earth and the 76,812,079,211th person to have lived since history began.

I'm just a speck on the lens of history, really.
posted by dg 31 October | 02:13
User number 77662608968 here.
posted by danostuporstar 31 October | 08:52
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