4 ms·
Not a fact per se, but: the sheer amount of living things that came before me, in the sense of my direct ancestors and their direct ancestors etc. etc – not onl
by ManuelKiessling 6y ago
Not a fact per se, but: the sheer amount of living things that came before me, in the sense of my direct ancestors and their direct ancestors etc. etc – not only my human ancestors, but the whole of my ancestors all the way back to the origins of life itself – and I would not be here today if even one of them would have died before reproducing... that manages to blow my mind every single time I think about it.
- tunesmith 6y agoAnd it can be reeeeally depressing to think about for those that aren't having children.
- Geee 6y agoTry counting the total number of your ancestors: you have 2 parents, they have 4 parents in total etc., i.e. 2^N where N is the number of generations. Going just 40 generations back (about 1000 years), you had 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776 ancestors.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoBut not necessarily 2^40 unique ancestors. That is, the same person may be your ancestor by more than one route through the subsequent generations.