Why a classic zombie apocalypse is impossible
Assuming Romero, Night of the Living Dead, style slow shuffling zombies have risen from the dead to consume the living, it would be numerically impossible for them to muster in sufficient numbers to allow them to take over the world. Bare with me now, assuming that every dead body buried within the last year, which is rough 64,579,200, were to rise on night one as zombies. Now that’s assuming none were cremated or were so mangled that it would make reanimation impossible, crushed in an auto accident for instance. This also assumes that the zombies rose in uniform numbers all around the world, which also isn’t realistic as mortality rates vary greatly from developed to developing nation. All that aside, we’re just taking of about 9.6 zombies for every 1,000 persons. Now assuming all the undead horde rose up at the same time at night and takes everyone by surprise. In the process let’s say on average each zombie killed two people or about 129,154,400, within the first 12 hours. By the second wave of deaths, following 12 hours, people are no longer being taken off guard and being to fight back, but since they don’t quite know how to kill them another two persons are killed per zombie.
At this point, roughly a day into the rising about 258,316,800 people have died, with no zombies causalities. By this point there’s still about 996 persons per zombie. Now not all survivors will want to or be capable of fighting back, so let’s just assume only one in 50 people wants to and is capable of fighting back, which is roughly 19 (rounding down) people per zombie.
In a worst case scenario let’s say that everyone who engaged the zombies died fighting and in the process eliminated all the zombies in the process. To makes things even more grave and realist, lets say another 21 persons per zombie were killed the subsequent fighting. That’s 44 killed per zombie or 2,841,84,800. Now though this is a huge number in a very worst case scenario, but considering that something like over 3.8 billion people survived its by no means a Day of the Dead style apocalypse. And yes I’m aware that some people would turn to zombies after being attacked, but as you can see from Dawn of the Dead that takes time and in the mean time all the original zombies would have been large eliminated and any new zombies would be killed either before they turned or in much smaller numbers by people who by this point would be quite good at eliminating them. A much more possible scenario for a level 4 outbreak leading to an end of the world would involved the infected instead of an undead rising.
At this point, roughly a day into the rising about 258,316,800 people have died, with no zombies causalities. By this point there’s still about 996 persons per zombie. Now not all survivors will want to or be capable of fighting back, so let’s just assume only one in 50 people wants to and is capable of fighting back, which is roughly 19 (rounding down) people per zombie.
In a worst case scenario let’s say that everyone who engaged the zombies died fighting and in the process eliminated all the zombies in the process. To makes things even more grave and realist, lets say another 21 persons per zombie were killed the subsequent fighting. That’s 44 killed per zombie or 2,841,84,800. Now though this is a huge number in a very worst case scenario, but considering that something like over 3.8 billion people survived its by no means a Day of the Dead style apocalypse. And yes I’m aware that some people would turn to zombies after being attacked, but as you can see from Dawn of the Dead that takes time and in the mean time all the original zombies would have been large eliminated and any new zombies would be killed either before they turned or in much smaller numbers by people who by this point would be quite good at eliminating them. A much more possible scenario for a level 4 outbreak leading to an end of the world would involved the infected instead of an undead rising.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tyler on -
I know its a comedy site, and I'm sure most people have read it, but have at it
http://www.cracked.com/article_15643_5-scientific-reasons-zombie-ap...
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Permalink Reply by CrazyAndy on -
to feed your zombie apocalypse imagination read this its about a how there was possibly a zombie outbreak in Egypt between 3500 and 3000 bc. actually i got it from a comment on that site.
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/hierakonpolis/zombies.html
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Permalink Reply by Agent Delta on -
i believe zombes could be possible, but i dont think they will be the end of the world. no, obama will cause the end of america at least.....
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Permalink Reply by joshua day on -
obama will be the end of america
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Permalink Reply by Mr. Hayter on -
obama will definitely be the end of america.
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Permalink Reply by JB on -
Hey, give the guy a chance. He's only been in office a month. There's alot of cleaning up that needs to be done and he's going to do his best. Stereotypes aside (Republican vs Democrate) he was a hell of a candidate, and deserves his chance.
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Permalink Reply by joshua day on
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im just starting trouble. atleast the man has work ethic, even thoughi disagree with damn near everything he believes n besides, healthcare 4 childern.
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Permalink Reply by CrazyAndy on
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Obama will be the end of america hes got communism written all over him... dividing the wealth hello Stalin
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Permalink Reply by Rylan on -
In my initial piece I gave the zombies huge assumptions, just to show how even if we gave them ever possible advantage their chances would be nil. Now if I were to tighten-up the facts further you’ll see how a Romero style zombie apocalypse is impossible. First off I used an average world mortality rate of 9.6 annual deaths per thousand people. Since zombies don’t seem to migrate/travel too far from the area they rose from, any outbreak would be dependent on the number of dead locally available. So if we narrowed the scene of our level four outbreak to say developed first world nations like the United States (8.27*), France (8.48*), or Australia (6.68*) you’ll see that their mortality rates are much lower and hence would actually have few zombies available in the initial rising.
I also gave the zombies 100% of all deaths within a given calendar year, which for the United States would be about 2,512,629 deaths or zombies risen. Now more reality not all those deaths will result in a zombie, because some will be cremated, donated for medical dissection or have died in some manner that prevents reanimation. So for the sake of argument lets say only 2/3 of all deaths would result in a risen zombie and when that number is recalculated for the U.S. we’re now looking about 1,658,336 zombies. When compared to the total living population of the U.S. we’re talking about a ratio of one zombie for ever 183 people. With those numbers I think it’s quite impossible for zombies to nearly wipe out the living population, as seen in the later Romero films like Day, Dawn or Land.
Now Joseph makes a good point that all deaths in a Romero zombie universe would results in a new zombie, regardless of whether he/she was bitten or not. Of course like I previously stated these reanimations are not instantaneous and therefore take time, which would allow survivors to take measures to prevent said reanimation. So yes in time the zombies would be reinforced with additional undead as they bit people or were killed in some other way, but those reinforcements would be too few to maintain their overwhelming numbers and in time the zombie outbreak would be contained. Now no doubt huge numbers of people would be killed in such a global zombie outbreak, but no where near that seen in the films.
*CIA World Fact book 2008 est.
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