I'm trying to figure out a reasonable population for my colony of Santa Maria,
and I'm finding that I've forgotten all that high school math...
Population growth is a compound-interest type equation, I think, but
damned if I can remember the actual formula. So, given:
Initial population of X Average annual growth of Y% Average annual immigration
of Z and Years Since Colony Established of Q
there must be an easier way of doing this than repeating (X x Y) + Z
a number of times equal to Q. (I'm positing a 97-year old colony. You
can understand my desire to find an easier way.) You can't just do
q{(xy)+z}, because (xy) is a constantly increasing number.
Please help...
Embarrasingly inumerate,
If you know how, try writing a simple program to do it for you. Thats what I
did on my population calculations.
In my calculations, I have been using a growth rate of 2%. My source: A
college economics book. It has the population of the U.S. listed (from1929 to
1982). By compairing the numbers I concluded that the growth rate was about
2% (close enough for my projects.) Unfortunatly the book does not list
immegration numbers.
Donald Hosford
> Brian Burger wrote:
> I'm trying to figure out a reasonable population for my colony of
In a message dated 99-02-15 15:49:18 EST, you write:
<< there must be an easier way of doing this than repeating (X x Y) + Z
a number of times equal to Q. (I'm positing a 97-year old colony. You
can understand my desire to find an easier way.) You can't just do
q{(xy)+z}, because (xy) is a constantly increasing number.
Please help... >> run the attached file in Qbasic, enter the numbers and hit
enter. INPUT "Colony Age", Q INPUT "Initial Pop", X INPUT "Anerage Annuel
Groth", Y INPUT "Average Annual Immigration", Z Pop = X FOR a = 1 TO Q
Pop = (X * (.01 * Y)) + Z + Pop
NEXT a PRINT Pop
> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 99-02-15 15:49:18 EST, you write:
Thanks. Next dumb question: Does Win98 have QBasic or similar within the
system? I took a quick look, but turned up nothing.
Try looking on the original Win98 CD. On the Win95 one QBasic is under
something
like 'dos' or 'other\\dos' or somesuch - do a 'find' on the CD looking
for "QBasic.*". QBasic isn't installed by default.
> Brian Burger wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
+ Z
> > a number of times equal to Q. (I'm positing a 97-year old colony.
You can
> > understand my desire to find an easier way.) You can't just do
I should remember to quote the proper numbers when I open my mouth!
I rechecked the growth percentages...It is 1%. Immegration amounts to 0.4% of
that.
Donald Hosford
> Donald Hosford wrote:
> If you know how, try writing a simple program to do it for you. Thats
A
> college economics book. It has the population of the U.S. listed
You can
> > understand my desire to find an easier way.) You can't just do
I set up a spreadsheet for the 82 years since the Alarishi Empire was first
settled. I started in 2101 because that's about the earliest plausible time
for a private citizen to get hold of a starship.
Base Population * (1+ Growth Rate) = Subtotal Next Pop;
Immigration Base Amount * (1+Increase Rate * .9999 ^ Year)^Year =
Subtotal Immigration;
Sub Next+Sub Immigration = next year's Base.
Initial Settlement 500, immigration base afterwards 1000. Growth Rate
4%.
Immigration increase I set at 9%. Note that Immigration rate increase will
decrease over time--in 82 years it's down from 9% to 6%. I set the
figures a little high to account for floods of refugees during the wars. All
in all, I came out with a population for the Alarish Empire of 9.3 million.
Not exactly a force to make the ESU--or even the IF--quake in their
boots.
First of all, thanks to all the people who responded to my request for the
math help...
With new figures in hand, I've adjusted the population of Santa Maria
accordingly. (it was a completely silly 55million. Now 12.3 million, roughly)
See <http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9774/santamaria.html> for
that. I've also added the astrocartography information that Nyrath sent me
- Santa Maria is Delta Pavonis. Various other changes as well.
While you're at my site, go back to Games and let me know what you think of
the latest changes there...
Thanks again,
> On Mon, 15 Feb 1999 DracSpy@aol.com wrote:
+ Z
> > a number of times equal to Q. (I'm positing a 97-year old colony.
You can
> > understand my desire to find an easier way.) You can't just do
(expansion rate)(time) the equation is Final # = (initial #) * e
+immigration(time)
e is roughly 2.718281828459045 but most scientific calculators have a button
for it.
--Binhan