4 ms·

All the water on Earth was drunk at some stage wasn't it?

shkkmo 6y ago
I suspect that isn't true, but it is an interesting question. There is a lot of water on the planet, some of it spends long periods locked up out of reach of drink ability. I would guess that at most water has been drunk multiple times, but that there is some miniscule a fraction that moved between icecap, permafrost and deep water table and has avoided being consumed by an animal since it arrived on earth. I would be interested to read a mathematical estimate of how many 9s of water on earth has been drunk at some point.
- martinpw 6y ago
  There is a related interesting observation that every breath you take contains on average one molecule that was breathed out by Julius Caesar in his dying breath: https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/are-we-really-breathing-caesars-last-breath/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/are-we-really-brea...
  - mturmon 6y ago
    Avogadro’s number is very large.
thebluehawk 6y ago
Somewhat related XKCD What if: https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/
autokad 6y ago
drunk by a human or drunk at all? I'd suspect that not all water has been drunk at all, but lets cover the human part. Lets say the average human drinks 3 liters per day and lives 80 years (3 * 365 * 80 ) = 87,600 liters per human. there have been about 100 billion humans so 100 b * 87600 =8,760,000,000,000,000 liters have been drunk. there are about this many liters in Earths 5 oceans (source google search): 1,400,000,000,000,000,000,000 Assuming no one has ever drank the same amount of water before, 8,760,000,000,000,000 < 1,400,000,000,000,000,000,000 It sounds fairly certain that not all water has been drunk by a human, even if my math is way off
- unchocked 6y ago
  The point is that in being drank, water is not destroyed.
- Joeri 6y ago
  In any particular glass of water, supposedly almost all of it was drunk by a dinosaur. https://youtu.be/KK64DqpIy0s https://youtu.be/KK64DqpIy0s

I suspect that isn't true, but it is an interesting question. There is a lot of water on the planet, some of it spends long periods locked up out of reach of drink ability. I would guess that at most water has been drunk multiple times, but that there is some miniscule a fraction that moved between icecap, permafrost and deep water table and has avoided being consumed by an animal since it arrived on earth. I would be interested to read a mathematical estimate of how many 9s of water on earth has been drunk at some point.

martinpw 6y ago
There is a related interesting observation that every breath you take contains on average one molecule that was breathed out by Julius Caesar in his dying breath: https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/are-we-really-breathing-caesars-last-breath/ https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/are-we-really-brea...
- mturmon 6y ago
  Avogadro’s number is very large.

thebluehawk 6y ago

Somewhat related XKCD What if: https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/

autokad 6y ago

drunk by a human or drunk at all? I'd suspect that not all water has been drunk at all, but lets cover the human part. Lets say the average human drinks 3 liters per day and lives 80 years (3 * 365 * 80 ) = 87,600 liters per human. there have been about 100 billion humans so 100 b * 87600 =8,760,000,000,000,000 liters have been drunk. there are about this many liters in Earths 5 oceans (source google search): 1,400,000,000,000,000,000,000 Assuming no one has ever drank the same amount of water before, 8,760,000,000,000,000 < 1,400,000,000,000,000,000,000 It sounds fairly certain that not all water has been drunk by a human, even if my math is way off

unchocked 6y ago
The point is that in being drank, water is not destroyed.
Joeri 6y ago
In any particular glass of water, supposedly almost all of it was drunk by a dinosaur. https://youtu.be/KK64DqpIy0s https://youtu.be/KK64DqpIy0s