Help Appreciated

  1. 22 Posts.
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    Hi everyone,

    I'm not sure if this is the right forum on which to post, but here goes...

    I was thinking about the fact that I have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, and so on...

    I am of Greek heritage, and I thought back to the time of my ancestors in Ancient Greece.

    Now, I'm going to make a few whopper assumptions here...

    Ancient Greece started in about 800BC (say, 2,800 years ago for rough figures)

    The population of Ancient Greece was around 1,000,000 then.

    A generation reproduces itself every 25 years (give or take)

    2800/25 = 112

    So there have been 112 generations from the "beginning" of Ancient Greece until now.

    Now, 2 to the power of 112 = 5,192,296,858,534,827,628,530,496,329,220,096 whatever that number is...

    So there must have been THAT many of my ancestors all walking around at the same time in 800BC. But I know that's impossible, because that's more then the population of the world, even right now.

    So, I know my mathematics is wrong, but where?

    I'd appreciate some feedback.

    BB
 
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