Will the weight of our population ever equal the mass of the earth?

Question

The world population is expanding at a very fast rate and is not expected to even out until the next century. Considering the world is getting heavier every second, it is conceivable that it will eventually surpass the mass of the earth.
Will the population of the world become the same as the earth? What might happen then?

Answer 1

The world is not getting heavier every second (well - except for space dust falling from orbit). The population of earth could quintuple (5x) and the world would still weigh the same because the earth is a "closed environment". The weight of everything on earth will always be the same, whether it is made of water, dirt, trees or people - remember: matter cannot be destroyed it can only be converted into energy, the mass stays the same it never goes up or down.
A good way to picture this: a family cuts down a bunch of trees and burns them (weight goes down), the ash and carbon from the trees falls back to earth (weight goes back to original). Then the family kills and eats all the animals that lived in the trees (weight goes down), then they all get fat, have babies and crap a lot (weight goes back up to original).
Now you have 20 people instead of 2, but you now have no trees or animals, those 20 people, their clothes, houses made from trees, and all their garbage (tree bark, charcoal, burnt ash, poop, animal bones) weight the same as the trees and animals they cut down or killed and ate. The weight stays the same.

As far as having a humongous population, there would have to be somewhere around 645,000,000.000 people to weigh the same as what would be left of the earth at that point, there isn't enough food water or air for the population to get that big.

Answer 2

a good way to answer this is to see how many people it would take - then see if there's enough space on the surface of the planet.

Say the average human weighs 60 kg, and the mass of the earth is 6x10^24 kg - this means there would 10^23 people.... that's about an Avogadro Number of humans (don't worry if you don't get it). Assuming standing room only, this would take about 841 billion earths for this to be possible.

... and that's standing room only. I don't think it's very likely :-)

hth

Answer 3

The mass of the Earth is so huge that the weight of all life is nothing in comparison.

Earth 5.9736×10^24 kg
Humans 3×10^11 kg

So the Earth weighs 10,000,000,000,000 times the weight of humans.

If my math is off by a few zeros, sorry.
✩

Answer 4

NO, as Nature has a way of fixing and healing itself and when the population becomes too great, you will suddenly find a new germ warfare to fix the problem to reduce the numbers. Sars is a perfect example and so is Aids. Plus mother nature also plays a part in all of this.

Answer 5

No I don't think that is possible. Even if the entire earth was covered in people it wouldn't add up to the amount that the earth weighs... The earth is dense, it is solid to the core. Just having people on the surface isn't enough weight.

Answer 6

If there were billions of people and each weighed hundreds of pounds from being grossly overweight, that is still peanuts compared to even one mountain range on the earth. Do the arithmetic and stop worrying.

Answer 7

I can never occur. The total mass of the Earth is 5.973,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons and it would be impossible to fit that many people on earth.

Answer 8

Only if we are all stacked up 50 deep and by then we will surely have killed each other as food.

Answer 9

Never.

Answer 10

Somehow, I don't believe that is possible.