Human Connectivity 1

An interesting thought that is touched upon in Bill Bryon's book is that of the human chain of connectivity. In exploring genetics and inheritance through Mathematics he shows that, according to a pyramid model, it becomes something of an impossibility. My interest in this means that I look upon this through a different lens - I'm more interested in what it eventually says about US as people and how, ultimately we are all connected - whatever our racial and ethnic background.

Consider the Mathematics that Bryon explores: we have 2 parents and 4 grandparents and 8 great-grandparents. 16 people were our grandparents' grandparents and this increases the further we go back. Eight generations back, we we owe our biological existence to 256 people and so on.

SELF
2 PARENTS
4 GRANDPARENTS
8 GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
16 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
32 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
64 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
128 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
256 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENT
512 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
(keep on doubling the figure to go back another generation)

Twenty generations back (about 450 years) we are related to 1,048,576 great ancestors. Five generations before, our existence depends on 33,554,432 people - another five generations before (30 generations back) and we are now counting in figures over a billion. Continue this trend and go back to the time of the Romans and the time-line by which the Gregorian Calendar is fixed (2000 years), then we have a total number of one million trillion people in our immediate ancestry.

According to those who study paleodemographics however, there is something wrong here ... because that last figure is more than the said number of people who have ever lived ...

... allow me to continue in the next instalment InshAllah ...