On Sep 22, 1997 at 1:37:51 PM, Brian Burger <burger00@camosun.bc.ca> wrote:
> I'd say that the 'average' colony would be a million or so after 100
Assuming a starting population of 50,000, and a net growth rate of 5% per
annum (and assuming my math skills haven't failed me in my old age), after 100
years the population would be 6,575,062. This assumes no immigration or
emigration.
> On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Christopher Weuve wrote:
> Assuming a starting population of 50,000, and a net growth rate of 5%
Using the equation of kt A = Ao * e
where A = final number Ao = Starting number k = growth rate per year t = time
in years
I get 7,420,658 after 100 years starting with 50,000 assuming a net 5% growth
each year (i.e. 5% more people each year after deaths and emigration and
immigration are taken into account)
Now this may not be totally correct since techinically most of the new
population is born and not immigrating in and so should not be counted as
being capable of repoducing for at least a decade and a half after their
introduction. Besides a 5% rate is pretty high and normally would occur if you
had people bearing kids as fast as they could. i can't imagine a new colony
world being able to afford having everybody taking care of kids
all the time. A more resonable rate would be 2 - 2.5% growth. At this
rate the numbers would be 609,124 after 100 years.
Doubling the inital colonization to 100,000 would generate 1,218,249 at 2.5%
growth.
I think that a million people per colony for old colonies is not an
unreasonable assumption based on these numbers.
--Binhan
Just a little thing to add:
My figures for 'initial population' are meant to be a big abstraction. I'd
expect no more than a few dozen to a few hundred colonists initially, and then
over the
next ten/twenty years, more colonists turning up in their
thousands/hundreds of thousands/millions.
Also, for reference, the formula I used was:
P = i*(g^t)
P final population i initial population g growth rate (as multiplier, ie 2%
growth = 1.02) t time, in years