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Remember the Marvel No-Prize? I don't have a prize either, but I do have a question


This will date you: the Marvel No-Prize (and did you advance to the rank of Keeper of the Flame?).

I actually got one of the treasured empty envelopes for having a letter published in Fantastic Four #90.

If I'd had the foresight to hang onto it, who knows what it would be worth today?

OK, for no-prize-at-all-except-bragging-rights, here's a question:

What percentage of all the modern humans who have ever lived is believed to be alive today?
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Comments

Hube said…
Aw, MAN!! I want one! I've had several letters published in Marvel mags, but they were after Marvel discontinued the No-Prizes. (I did, however, get the original page of art from a volume 3 issue of IRON MAN after I sent in a letter ... artist Sean Chen even included the name "Hube" on top of a Manhattan taxi which Tony Stark was getting out of as an homage!) What was your letter about in that FF issue, Steve?

As for your question, I'm guessing it has to be some miniscule fraction of 1%. By "modern" humans you mean everyone after the Neanderthals, right?
January 12, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Anonymous said…
No, it's considerably higher than that. I'm going to take a wild guess and say somewhere between 25-35%.
January 12, 2008 at 3:37 PM
Anonymous said…
According to one set of calculations based on 2002 data:[22]

The number who have ever been born is around 106,000,000,000
The world population in mid-2002 was approximately 6,215,000,000
The percentage of those ever born who were living in 2002 was approximately 5.8%
The claim often made in various popular sources that more than half the humans ever born are alive today, is therefore in all probability quite exaggerated.

http://tinyurl.com/sxncl
Wikipedia, I cheat
January 12, 2008 at 9:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Oh, I expected Hube to know this one off the top of his head :)
January 12, 2008 at 9:01 PM
Hube said…
Why would that be, Alan? I suck at math! :-)

Aftef I posted, I figured it was some "trick" question. Your figuring looks sound.
January 13, 2008 at 12:43 PM
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