X-Message-Number: 8862 From: Olaf Henny <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #8855 Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 19:32:22 -0800 Re: Cryonet (Cryonics) Survey Mike Perry wrote: >> Of those who pass away each year, only about 0.0000000000001% choose >> to be frozen, instead of being fried in a hot oven, or becoming worm >> food. > >I.e. "epsilon" %--a totally insignificant amount, which has seemed >very strange to me too. Mathematically speaking, and as a minor >point relative to your main one, your epsilon looked >too small--1 part in 10^15, if I counted the zeros right, so I set >out to obtain a better estimate. There are about 6X10^9 (six billion) >people in the world. Roughly 1% die each year, or around 6X10^7. Roughly >5 people in the world are cryonically suspended each year, which is >about 1 person in 10^7 or 10^-5%, i.e. 0.00001%--still plenty small. > > Y N Actually I love the idea of becoming a corpsicle when I die. > (and I can hardly wait) > >Most of us cryonicists would not say "I can hardly >wait"--far from it. Dying >and being frozen is the second worst thing that can happen to you, >etc. In general I found the questions too flippant and >shallow--though it could be wondered whether, if they were more >seroiously worded, the usual readers would take them seriously. Everything here is worded too damn seriously. Most people feel uncomfortable in a morgue. Mike, you are obviously a fine mathematician and, I trust, an outstanding scientist, but you should really look up the word "humor" in your dictionary, or have somebody explain the meaning of"tongue-in-cheek" to you. I can assure you, that Doug is capable of the same calculation, which you just demonstrated, but there are a lot of highly intelligent people out there, who are not living on math alone, and who might just be grabbed by Doug's approach (he never claimed, that it was a research paper). At least it is an attempt to get away from the dry as sawdust communication, which usually prevails here. Olaf Henny Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8862