The author of the book ‘The Doomsday Calculation’ has, through the use of a mathematical approach, predicted that the human race has a 50% chance of facing its end within 760 years.
The controversial suggestion was made by author William Poundstone who resorted to the Copernican method to estimate when the human race would most likely seize to exist.
Developed by astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III of the Princeton University, the Copernican principle is believed to predict the likely scenario when it comes to the timespan of the existence of anything that has been encountered, such as the human race, for example, at a random point in time.
“Obviously, if you have any specific information affecting the life span of, say, the human race, or a class of stars, you can estimate its life span more realistically,” the Princeton University astrophysicist said in an interview with the New York Times back in 1993.
“But this statistical method allows you to make at least a rough estimate of a life span without knowing anything more than how long something has existed.”
Speaking of his results using the Copernican principle in a section published by Vox, The Doomsday Calculation author said:
“Demographers have estimated the total number of people who ever lived at about 100 billion. That means that about 100 billion people were born before me.
“Currently, about 130 million people are born each year. At that rate, it would take only about 760 years for another 100 billion more people to be born.
“That’s the basis of the claim that there’s a 50 percent chance that humans will become extinct within about 760 years. The flip side of the claim is there’s also a 50 percent chance we’ll survive past 760 years, possibly long past that.”
Mr. Gott developed the Copernican method based on the ideas and findings of Renaissance astronomer Copernicus. While doing so, he concluded that the concept can be applied to the human race and used to predict its future position in time based on how long it has already existed.
Previously, the astrophysicist used this notion to precisely predict the destruction of the Berlin Wall.
According to his estimations, there was a 50% chance that the wall would be demolished within 24 years from the day in 1969 when he made the prediction. In addition, he claimed the wall would stand firm for a minimum of two and two-thirds years more.
Approximately 21 years later, in 1990, the wall’s demolition had officially started.
“Now take a deep breath. Imagine that a tourist wanted to make this prediction: ‘The future duration of the Berlin Wall will be between one-third and three times as long as its past duration,’” Poundstone expressed.
“Gott made that prediction, except that he also made use of the knowledge that the wall was then eight years old.”
The author added:
“(He) reasoned that this prediction had a 50 percent chance of being right. You may feel that 50 percent is too wishy-washy and Gott just got lucky. No problem: The method can supply predictions with any degree of confidence you choose.
“To achieve 95 percent confidence, you’d make a diagram with the shaded region covering the middle 95 percent of the bar.
“The prediction range would be wider (from 1/39 to 39 times the past duration). Had Gott used this formulation, his prediction for the wall’s ceasing to exist would have been 0.21 to 312 years after his visit. This is less impressive, given the extremely wide range — but it would have been correct, too.”
Using the same approach, Gott has previously estimated, with a 95% probability rate, that the human race would exist no longer than 0.2 million to 8 million years in total.
“Making only the assumption that you are a random intelligent observer, limits for the total longevity of our species of 0.2 million to 8 million years can be derived at the 95 [%] confidence level,” Gott wrote in an article published in a scientific journal titled Nature.
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