this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
632 points (93.6% liked)

Science Memes

11189 readers
2174 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] ramenshaman@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But if there are 7 billion humans and n bacteria, and 50% of them are snapped, wouldn't approximately 3.5 billion humans and n/2 bacteria be snapped?

[โ€“] NorthWestWind@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

The problem is the ambiguity of the statement. Is it 50% of each species? Or is it 50% of all life as one set?

If it's the former case, then sure 3.5b humans and n/2 bacteria gets snapped.

But if it's the latter case, we group all 7b and n bacteria into one set and snap half of them. This 50% can consist of 50% humans + 50% bacteria, but there's also a chance for it to include 0% humans + 100% bacteria. Therefore, the amount of humans snap is a random variable instead of a constant.