Harry R. Schwartz

We Know You’re Out There, Spiderman

November 22nd, 2009

Abstract

Using absolutely bulletproof science, we demonstrate that 35.3 spidermen are created annually and that hundreds live secretly among us.

Introduction

Prompted by arguments about the possibility of radioactive spidermen living among us, Mr. Harman and I decided to use science to determine how many spidermen (if any) exist on Earth. It’s difficult to extrapolate from the single known instance of a spiderman (hereafter the SKI), but following the example of the Drake equation we’ve developed a predictive formula. Behold the incontrovertible majesty of the Harman-Schwartz equation:

Our equation states that:

N = P_e × f_s × f_r × f_l × f_p × f_g

where:

Total Population

Note that by using the above formula we’ve only calculated the number of spidermen being generated each year and not the total number of spiderman living on earth at any given time. This can be calculated by the following equation:

N_tot = N(<A_d> – <A_c>)

where:

N_tot

is the total number of spidermen living on earth at any given time.

<A_d>

is the expected age at which a spiderman dies.

<A_c>

is the expected age at which a spiderman is created.

Plugging in the Numbers

P_e

The population of the Earth is around 6.67 billion.

f_s

We estimate that about 1.66 × 10^-3% of people are bitten by a spider each year.

f_r

Between Chernobyl, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, and assorted other tests and accidents, about 2.55% of the land area of the Earth has been irradiated to some degree. We can use this as f_r if we assume an evenly distributed spider distribution.

f_l

The vast majority (about 99.9%) of people survive spider bites, but obviously irradiated spiders are more deadly. Let’s set f_l to 50%.

f_p

Working off the SKI, we’d have to assume that this is 100%. Let’s be conservative, though, and say only a tenth of people bitten by radioactive spiders develop superpowers.

f_g

We’re totally guessing here and saying that 25% of superpowered radioactive spidermen will dedicate their lives to doing good.

Plugging those figures into the equation, we estimate that on average, 35.3 spidermen are created annually.

<A_c>

The median age in the world’s population is 27.5 years, which is what we’re using.

<A_d>

This is a controversial term. For the purposes of our study, we’ve made the simplifying assumption that spidermen have an average lifespan equal to the human average (73.1 years). It could be argued for the that spidermen are especially prone to an early violent death, but following the example of the SKI we argue that the rates of violent death and cloning are approximately equal, thereby sidestepping the whole issue.

By plugging these numbers into our final equation, we find that at any given time on Earth, on average there are 1,609 radioactive spidermen living secretly among us. ☐

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