How do you estimate the number of people who have died in the earth's history up till today?

Answer 1

Answer on article:
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx

Answer 2

Basically, you need a series of population estimates throughout history, coupled with some idea of the average lifespan. Then, you just divide "earth's history" up into the number of lifespans that humans have lived, estimate the average population during each of those lifespans, and sum up all the averages.

If you go to this page, and scroll down to "number of humans who have ever lived", you'll see some of the difficulties in coming up with these estimates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

Answer 3

Create a function that describes the population of the world.
It will be a simple exponetial of some form. You should be able to find some data points at various times in history and use those to fit your curve.

Once you have your curve you can integrate it from whatever start point you want up to within, say, 60 years of the present (since most of those people are still living).

Et voila! The total number of people who have died.

Answer 4

I think the historians may estimate the people died normally in a period of time and they add this number to the number of death on a special occasion, such as a war or a plague, then calculate and kind of. Then, the result.
I think these kinds of statistics are just approximate, you can't be exact!

Answer 5

just count the stars... both are equal... (joking...)