The enormous number of people who now live on earth is beyond imagination. The human brain is simply not designed for 8 billion. But visualizations can be a way to approach gigantic numbers – here is a small selection.
There are now 8 billion people living on earth. So thumbs up. That sounds like a lot – but you can’t really imagine it. Even with the number 1000, most people’s brains reach their limits. But millions or billions? There is nothing that can be done. One possibility, however, is to approach a huge number – such as the 8 billion inhabitants of the earth – via illustrations. Here are some attempts:
Time: 8 billion say “Hello!”
Imagine, there is a big world introductory day. Everyone sits in front of a laptop or a smartphone and has exactly one second to say “Hello!” to another earthling. accept. Pairings are randomly assigned. How long does it take for one human to say hello to all the other 8 billion people on earth? Even if you could magically do it without breaks for sleep, food, and hygiene, the great encounter would still take around 254 years. Or to put it another way: it would be impossible during your lifetime.
Distance: 8 billion hold hands
Another possibility: All 8 billion people hold hands and form a huge human chain. Since not only adults but also many children take part – there have never been so many children on earth as there are now – a range of one meter could be set for each person. This human chain would be 8 million kilometers long – and would circle the equator 200 times.
Height: 8 billion standing on each other’s shoulders
A variation on the example above: instead of holding hands, all 8 billion people stand on top of each other on their shoulders. Ignoring the laws of physics, this human tower would easily reach the moon and far beyond. Assuming an average shoulder height of 120 centimetres, all humans reached almost 10 million kilometers into space. That’s about a quarter of the way to neighboring planet Venus when it’s closest to Earth.
Area: 8 billion live in Berlin
If everyone on earth lived in the federal capital of Berlin, that would of course cause even more distress to the housing market there. But just imagine the Berlin Senate embarking on a massive construction program to somehow accommodate all 8 billion. How much would Berlin expand? If the population density were to remain roughly the same (around 4,000 people per square kilometer), Berlin would proliferate in all directions until finally all of Germany, the Benelux countries, France and ultimately half the EU would be built up.
Familiar: 8 billion go to the football stadium
As a starting point for the last thought experiment, you can imagine a large crowd of people whose image is familiar: a packed football stadium. The Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona can hold around 100,000 people at full capacity (photo above as a reminder). Now imagine a miniature version of the packed Camp Nou, the size of a crate of beer. Of these, 80,000 fit almost exactly on a large football field if you put them close together to the sidelines. In all these miniature stadiums, 8 billion miniature people are sitting together.
Our brain: Not designed for it
But even with the most vivid examples, it remains difficult. Because people simply cannot imagine large numbers – illustrations lead to a certain wow effect, but the number 8 billion is still not really understandable. That’s because of where we come from, experts say. For our ancestors on the steppes of Africa, there was no evolutionary advantage in imagining large numbers. It didn’t make you a more successful hunter, nor did it make a difference in your choice of mate.
Alternative: shrink the world
Perhaps people have to accept that their imagination is limited – at least when it comes to large numbers. In order to be able to think about humanity as a whole, there is a trick that has become popular: the world of 100. Mankind is imagined as a village with exactly 100 inhabitants. If you want to imagine the distribution of the 8 billion people on the continents, 61 out of 100 villagers would come from Asia, 11 from Europe, 14 from North and South America and Oceania and also 14 from Africa. There are now different variants of this thought model (here a particularly original one). So the simplest way out: simply make large numbers small.
