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Let's say 95 percent are killed. That still leaves around 400 million people. Let's say 95 of scientists are killed. That might still leave around 4-500,000 sc
by flexie 6y ago
Let's say 95 percent are killed. That still leaves around 400 million people. Let's say 95 of scientists are killed.
That might still leave around 4-500,000 scientists worldwide and millions of engineers, millions of medical doctors, tens of millions of technicians of different kinds. Sure, many of them will be in odd places like New Zealand, South Africa or Argentina. But that's likely where most survivors would be as well.
Just for comparison, until the 1940s the US and Europe produced around 10-20,000 doctorates per year. At no point back then did we have more scientists worldwide than we would have after 95 percent of scientists were killed today. And unlike back then, the surviving scientists would have knowledge of every scientific knowledge produced afterwards, either as personal memory or in books and databases.
It's quite possible the internet would survive as well. After all, it's designed for that kind of events. Thousands of libraries would survive. Millions of machines, vehicles, airplanes, computers, components etc. would survive. Wikipedia, the 100 most important scientific journals, the US patent organization database can easily be on a laptop and libraries around the world are making copies all the time.