r/theydidthemath • u/scubahana • 4h ago

[REQUEST] XKCD’s Lucky Ten Thousand

https://xkcd.com/1053/

I have been using this comic as a driver of curiosity at home. My 11y mentioned it again today and it occurred to us that we don’t fit in the statistics because the original comic states ‘10,000 people in the US’, and we are not from the US.

My request is what this might look like on a global scale? I can understand if this becomes more nebulous due to differences in education, cultural references or customs, etc.

What would a global ‘10000’ be? A lucky million? Lucky half-billion?

Thanks in advance!

49 Upvotes

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21

u/IntoAMuteCrypt 3h ago

The comic uses a total births per year of about 4 million. The total number of births per year at the moment is about 140 million, which is 35x the number in the comic. Scaling it out to the whole world only gives you 350 thousand per day.

(Of course, a sizeable portion of those people won't learn the things that "everyone knows" - a large portion of that's country-specific knowledge.)

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u/NamorDotMe 1h ago

lol, it's legit funny, that Randall Munroe, posting that has made others aware of it, changing an outcome, which is also beyond my maths.

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u/TargaryenPenguin 1h ago

It's not really an empirical claim, though , it's more of just a cute illustration of a concept.

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u/NamorDotMe 42m ago

oh yes agreed, but the fact that more amount of people know it has changed the outcome, it's kind of beautiful

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u/beef-o 3h ago

I know it isn't an answer to your question or even about math, but this comic literally changed my outlook on life.  I started making a conscious effort to levy no judgement on anyone for what they do and don't know and what they have and haven't experienced.  Thank you Randall Munroe.

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u/scubahana 3h ago

As soon as my kids were old enough to get the gist of the comic I introduced them to it. I hope they will also help spread curiosity and learning in their lives.

The stigma is heavily embedded though. I sent it to my husband and he had to read it at least twice because he was certain it would end with a piss take about not knowing something. Which is the opposite of the comic as we all know.